Issue 3 Artist Spotlight | Kseniya Galper
C+B: Tell us about yourself, Kseniya!
KG: I work as a UX designer for an R&D group, I usually describe what I do as an intersection of design and psychology. I’m lucky to have a creative job where I get to constantly learn new things and experiment with emerging tech trends.
C+B: How has your relationship with your work changed since you first started creating?
KG: It’s always evolving, I’m sure if you ask me the same question ten years from now, I’ll give you a different answer. Early in my journey as an artist I’ve been disproportionally romanticizing the role of “genius” and “pure inspiration” and underestimated the importance of structure, understanding your creative process, and just sheer practice.
C+B: Share some details about your process for creating.
KG: It’s probably the wrong thing to mention, but a big part of my process is procrastination. Actually, it’s more than that, and over time I learned to respect it, but it definitely looks like procrastination. I noticed that I always go through these two distinct phases as I’m starting to work on a new painting, I call them “passive procrastination” and "active procrastination”.
Well, let me explain!
Passive procrastination is when I feel pretty paralyzed and it looks like I’m just wasting time. I go for a walk, I stare at the paintings in my studio, I spend hours looking at other artists’ work.
In reality, what’s happening is I’m starting to create a mental space for the new idea. There is a lot of thinking that’s happening during that phase, it’s sort of running in the background and starting to form patterns, impressions or emotions that I’m interested in expressing in my work.
Then I switch to active procrastination. During that phase a lot of activity starts, but none of it is seemingly related to that new painting, it really just looks like I’m avoiding it all together. I prep canvases, I clean the studio, I finish other projects that have been abandoned for months… But… what I realized is happening during this time is building energy and momentum that I will ultimately end up channeling into the new work.
C+B: What is the one accomplishment you most hope to achieve in your creative career?
KG: I wish art, and specifically this ability to make art, would stay in my life for as long as I’m around. I want to continue learning and growing and changing as an artist. But… if I had to pick a very specific goal, I’d love to get my work featured in an exhibit in MEAM, it’s a small contemporary art museum in Barcelona, Spain. It might be more of a dream than a goal.
Find and support Kseniya here:
IG: @kseniyagalper
(Patterns of Tension, 24" x 24", oil on board, ©Kseniya Galper)
If my work was a meal it would be: May be it’s like a charcuterie board? I often think of my paintings as a kaleidoscope, and I feel like charcuterie is the kaleidoscope of the food world.
I would love to be able to share my work with: There are so many artists I admire. I would love to study with them or even just observe their process, understand where their creative energy comes from. I’m not sure I would necessarily want to show them my work though.
What would be pretty fun, is to see my artwork used a film. Especially if the director is very particular about creating their sets, someone like Wes Anderson.
If I wasn’t able to paint, I would like to try: Fashion! There is so much to play with in fashion: more obvious elements like color, texture, pattern, structure, movement, but also more subtle aspects, like its historical and socio-economic influences, the psychology of fashion. So exciting.
My hope for those viewing my work: In my work as a designer, I always need to think about the goal and purpose or what I’m creating. Why is this product needed? What problem is it solving? Who is going to be using it? Etc, etc. When I paint, I approach it completely differently. I just want to paint, I feel the need to paint… and so I do. My work is not educational or intentionally inspirational, I just hope that anyone looking at it would feel the energy I put into it.
