Corrugated, reinforced or honeycombed, with cardboard, a pansy and gold leaf, Vadim Garine creates emotion. For this artist, this simple material is nevertheless magical. It can take on different aspects, reminiscent of a wheat field, an ocean or even a metallic surface. These works resulting from an inner journey are poetic, colorful and sensitive.
I feel like I’m exploring interiority through matter
Vadim Garine, artist and sculptor of light
” Often, facing matter, it sends us back to our own interiority, our being, our essence. In resonance with the material, we will touch all these incredible spaces, both of creativity and despair, and organize everything in a harmonious way. This can give an impact on the material so that it is vibrant. The work is born from what constitutes us deeply, intrinsically. »
Born in Kazakhstan, he studied psychology in the military field. As an officer, he did not stay long in the army because he quickly realized that it was not his universe. Vadim Garine is attracted by all kinds of spirituality and is moving towards iconography, he meets a master, a priest monk, with whom he stays for more than two years to learn iconography in a monastery. He arrived in France in 1996 as part of a cultural exchange concerning this iconographic art. He decorates churches and trains in the restoration of works of art, which allows him to broaden his technical knowledge and to found his restoration and creation workshop.
Cardboard is an incredible material for Vadim Garine which connects his works with his iconographic exercise.
” He there is the conception, the drawing, the imaginary side of the work, the form. I try to find the cutouts, the orientations of the cardboard by crushing, rolling up, the different shades that will constitute, form this design. On the technical side, it’s essentially collages, cut-outs. It’s very technical because cardboard is a very rebellious material. The cardboard cuts very badly. So there is a technical search to find out how to do it. If I use a saw or a cutter? Will it be sanded afterwards? Does it have to be hardened because sometimes to cut the cardboard and sand it, I will introduce resins into it, it’s my side of training as a restorer of art objects, because you can inject resins. How it will be glued ? There is also a technical research on orientations, depths, volumes.
And afterwards, there is a whole application work to define the shinier, matt, deeper parts which will be enormously impacted by the gold leaf. »
The inner journeys of Vadim Garin, allow him to produce his works in cardboard. These are transformed thanks to the application of gold leaf on the cardboard.
” The gold leaf is two thousandths of a millimeter. It will perfectly marry all the roughness of the materials and give all this incredible visibility. The work has nothing to do after the application of the sheet. It transforms her. The application of the gold leaf is uniform, deposited one after the other. We can work on the layout, rhythms, overlaps, leaves a little bit, either square or staggered shapes but the laying of the gold leaf is uniform. It is all this preparation of material beforehand that creates the diversity of forms. It’s like a celebration, the gold leaf. »
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