ABOUT

Short about Galina Manikova

Born on the island of Sakhalin, USSR, in 1953. Grew up in Moscow and lived there until 1973. Immigrated to Israel through marriage. Graduated from Art Academy Bezalel in Jerusalem in 1979.

Has been teaching there in 1979-85. Worked as designer for ceramic factory in Tel-Aviv in 1984-86. Freelance fashion designer and own ceramic workshop in Jerusalem in the same period.

 

Immigrated to Norway in 1986 by marrying a Norwegian. Has lived and worked in Oslo since then.

Has been teaching in ceramics and old photographic techniques on different materials at art academies and high schools in Scandinavia during 1986-2000. Works with clay, metal, textile, glass and ice using photographic, silkscreen and laminating techniques. Installations and video installations in Oslo, Paris, Berlin, Arnhem, Copenhagen in 1987-2000. CD-rom productions based on photography, video and text.

Organized and leaded two big projects that involved Russian and Norwegian artists and photographers and resulted in fellow exhibitions. Presently holds a studio in Horten, Norway and works on several new projects involving video and photography. Started a new big project in Lofoten called “Fremmedart”. It is an alternative art center for alternative photography on alternative surfaces.

CV

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MY ARTWORK, INTERESTS AND CONCEPTS

Born on the island of Sakhalin, USSR, in 1953. Grew up in Moscow and lived there until 1973. Immigrated to Israel through marriage. Graduated from Art Academy Bezalel in Jerusalem in 1979.

I have been educated as a ceramic artist in Jerusalem in the 70-s. There was an atmosphere of experimentation and research in the field at that time. I have specialized myself in photographic techniques on ceramics: old photo emulsions and graphic methods such as silkscreen, etching and lithography.

 

In the late 80-s I started working with installations involving ceramic sculpture with photographic images printed on, photo textiles and video. I was interested in applications of 2 on 3-D and the other way around. My subject, theme and concern have been mostly human communication and identity, relations between person and society, individual and group, men and women. As one of those emancipated, ambitious and revolutionary women in art I have experienced a strong negative wave against nearly everything I have been doing or saying.

 

My struggle and work has been therefore very much for and about the right to be different, not like everybody else. No matter where I lived or worked, I was standing out against the background of the others. I had to accept that I couldn’t identify myself with another group of people either on the base of nationality or culture, social status or even gender.

I believe that it is this personal, individual, peculiar experience every artist has to use as a main source of inspiration. I have always been interested in philosophy. Soren Kirkegaard and Simone de Beauvoir, Julia Kristeva and Jacques Derida, Camille Paglia and Tom Wolfe have been exerting influence upon me.

 

Artist as Ilja Kabakov, Mary Kelly, Magdalena Abakanovich, Robert Raushenberg, Diane Arbus, Eikoh Hosoe, Marie Jo Lafontaine are among those who have made an impact on my own work. Living in Norway now I have the freedom to do what I want to do. At the same time I feel that my chances to reach the public and to be understood by my audience are close to none. This has been the reason for traveling a lot and making exhibitions abroad.

 

At the moment I am working on: 1. video installation project based on female as a subject; 2. old photographic techniques on silk and cotton, wrinkled nudes; 3. digital photography transphered to silk, different subjects; 4. outside installation project with cast cotton and photographs; 5. photographs on glass and plexiglas with 3-D illusions of space; 6. ice festival with photographs applied inside ice sculptures.