Sofia Azarkhi is an artist, graduate of Leningrad State Higher Arts and Crafts College named after Mukhina, member of Russian Artists Union, member of Russian Designers Union.
There are a great number of solo shows, dozens of collective exhibitions behind Sofia’s back. She is an author of 10 theatre works.
In 1998 she was granted a diploma of Manezh central exhibition hall for the best work of the year.
In 2003 she became a winner in Modern Art Biennale held by Turku Museum of Modern Art (Finland).
Her works are in collections of State Museum of St Petersburg History, St Petersburg Toy Museum, State Museum of Communications named after A.Popov, ABOA VETUS & ARS NOVA Museum (Finland), in A.Frans’s collection (New York), in State Theatre Library collection of sketches and manuscripts. "Sometimes an artist needs to escape from reality and search for the truth far from it. Traditional fields for truth search are alchemy and occultism. It’s a wrong though that (as we were taught at school) alchemy is a pseudoscientific way of turning mercury into gold. In fact alchemy is a European spiritual experience, comparable to Eastern spiritual practices. The “Hermetic Study” project is an attempt to restore stages of the Great Work, which aim is a search for magisterium or the philosophers’ stone or absolute spirit, by means of modern art. The result of the “Hermetic Study” project turned out to be like those of all alchemists, Rosicrucians and occultist: the absolute wasn’t found. Probably it doesn’t exist. But in modern art, just like in alchemy, it’s the process which is important, not the result. The process, which included three classical stages of the Great Work, namely nigredo, carbonization or deconstruction of material, albedo, whitewashing or mantling and assembling, and rubedo, reddening, gilding, vivification or final make up, finished when a number of objects were found, which symbolize several occult, esoteric notions.
Materials: vinyl, leather, gold and black paint, baby dolls and their fragments, bow-instruments and their fragments, saucepan tops. Each material is symbolic: vinyl, leather are prima materials, saucepan tops bear a link to the process of alchemy heating, dolls are homuncles, whom alchemists tried to grow in tubes, musical instruments mean the harmony of universe, the mystery of which alchemists highly valued".
The project started in 2008, finished in 2009. |
