Cover: Untitled, 2019, charcoal, graphite, pencil on paper laid on canvas, 35 x 47 in.
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Through an intricate study of light and shadow, achieved by an infinite combination of charcoal lines on canvas, the elegant serenity of Danja Akulin’s compositions belies the detailed approach that surround their creation. As if derived from a Pointillist movement, the images are part-abstract, part-symbolic, part-figurative: forest trees, field grasses, still lakes, a moon gently hovering above, turn into sensuous and meditative landscapes. Akulin’s appetite for texture is clear in his paintings, which are all about thickness and thinness of charcoal lines, of light and shadow. With its energetic burst of volumetric lines moving outward from a focal point, they gradually dissolve into a rolling, deep perspective.
Akulin not only creates beautiful views, but complicated ones, given the intricacy of the application. The works are ambiguous in their final resolve: neither truly botanical nor strictly abstract. The intention is to capture the figurative of nature in tandem with its abstraction. Upon a closer inspection, there is not a single line - from depiction of a horizon or a tree trunk - that’s not part of a purposeful, determined and complex visual of the entire work.
For Akulin, texture created with line is what color is for other artists: a fundamental, visceral, expressive element. His surfaces percolate, and his palette leans toward grisaille. There’s a sense that every firm line is determinedly placed and consciously envisioned. Trees and landscapes may be the predominant subject of Akulin’s oeuvre, but streams of new visions constantly flow through his new works. In these new works on canvas, the objects are brilliantly alert, not static.
To Akulin, his paintings are always a work in progress – with constant layering, expanding and refining. At once striking and deeply personal, artwork for him is an emblem of serenity and meditation. Akulin’s black-and-white paintings successfully seem to combine the lifelike and the abstract. They are forceful, characteristically labor-intensive, and they represent his constant engagement with nature, strictly through light and shadow.
“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”
- Leo Tolstoy
Untitled, 2017, charcoal, graphite, pencil on paper laid on canvas, 51 x 69 in.
Untitled, 2014, charcoal on canvas, 24 x 35 in.
Untitled, 2017, graphite, pencil on paper laid on canvas, 26 x 37 in.
Untitled, 2017, graphite, pencil on paper laid on canvas, 39 x 55in.
Untitled, 2015, graphite, pencil on
on paper laid on canvas, 35 x 79 in.
Untitled, 2017, graphite, pencil on paper laid on canvas, 24 x 33 in.
Untitled, 2017, graphite, pencil on paper laid on canvas, 24 x 33 in.
Untitled, 2017, graphite, pencil on
on paper laid on canvas, 24 x 33 in.
Untitled, 2017, graphite, pencil on paper laid on canvas, 24 x 33 in.
Untitled, 2017, graphite, pencil on paper laid on canvas, 24 x 33 in.
Untitled, 2018, graphite, pencil on paper laid on canvas, 24 x 33 in. each
Untitled, 2017, graphite, pencil on paper laid on canvas, 56 x 45 in.
Untitled, 2017, graphite, pencil on paper laid on canvas, 24 x 33 in.
Untitled, 2019, charcoal on canvas, 57 x 87 in.
on canvas, 57 x 98 in.
Untitled, 2019, charcoal on canvas, 57 x 83 in.
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Education:
2005-2006 Advanced MFA, University of Arts (UdK), Department of Fine Arts, Prof. Daniel Richter, Berlin, Germany
2000-2005 BFA, University of Arts (UdK), Department of Fine Arts, Prof. Georg Baselitz, Berlin, Germany
Awards: 2017 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award
2018 Art on Paper, Contemporary Drawing Fair, Gallery J.J. Heckenhauer, Brussels, Belgium
2018 J.J. Heckenhauer Gallery, Munich, Germany
2014 J.J. Heckenhauer Gallery, Munich, Germany
2014 “Landscapes”, Poll Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2013 art KARLSRUHE, One-Artist-Show, Poll Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2013 “Charcoal on Canvas”, Mimi Ferzt Gallery, New York, USA
2012 “Crepusculum”, TS Art Projects, Berlin, Germany
2012 “Penumbra”, Erarta Gallery, London, UK (catalog)
2011 “Landscapes”, Gallery J.J. Heckenhauer, Brussels, Belgium
2010 “V.I.P.R.I.P.”, Michael Schultz Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2008 Mimi Fertz Gallery, New York, USA
2007 “Signs”, Triumph Gallery, Moscow, Russia (catalog)
2007 “Survival Craft”, Moscow Center of Art, Moscow, Russia (catalog)
2004 Borkowski Gallery, Hannover, Germany (catalog)
2002 Bellevue Gallery, Berlin, Germany
angelica@ellipsis-art.com
Angelica is a Private Art Advisor working with a variety of artists and consulting private clients. She is a member of the NYU Alumni Council and ArtTable, the leadership organization for professional women in the visual arts.
2005 - 2014
Director of Mimi Ferzt Gallery in New York City, which specialized in Russian Non-Conformist and Contemporary Art. Organized important curatorial exhibitions of prominent Russian artists, and successfully placed them in important private and public art collections around the world.
2004, NYU Masters Degree, Visual Arts Administration
Published graduate thesis focused on building a sustainable global market for Russian Contemporary Art, tracing Russian art through its various historical movements, from Soviet era to the Russian Non-Conformist Movement, to discussion of today’s contemporary art in Russia.
Catalog Design: Lisa Meta Griff, Metamorfize.com