object & me

object & me

object & me

anna ugolkova

october 5 – november 4, 2024

craft council of bc

artist statement

Object and me is the installation expanding the boundaries that typically separate art and design. I am connecting my art and design works by a shared conceptual framework of questioning the original properties of things and their meanings.

In my installation, interweaving and analogies are very important, both of the object, the body and memory, and of different media. I am researching objects in the context of their reality and mine, in motion and imprinted. Installation will feature jewelry, mixed media objects and painting, where each component forms a part of the complex narrative. It invites viewers to rethink the everyday objects and lines that shape them.

My research interests include poetry and memory in art, object-oriented ontology studies, performative objects and installation studies.

In my art and design practice I’m exploring the memories that physical objects preserve and the often-unseen relationships between material things. Major concerns of my works are form, material and reconstruction of meaning. I am revising ideas and things and seek to shift the experience of objects and create new narratives.

Everyday aesthetics and possibilities of perception and researching the form and material plays a crucial role in this installation.

In my installations, interweaving and analogies are very important, both of the object, the memory, and of different media. Working with a gallery space plays an important role for me, as I view the space as a significant part of an exhibition and all of my works at a current time are site respondent.

In many ways I am questioning the original properties of things and their meanings. Does an object, shape, line or form can be given a leading role in a single art work? How many analogies and correlations are between objects we daily create and see, and to what extent we can approach their inner life?

Through the process of creation, I pursue the materiality of things, observing and transforming things around us, looking for our physical and mental connections to them and inviting viewers to reevaluate the world of objects that often passes unnoticed in daily life.

Everyday aesthetics and possibilities of perception and researching the form and material plays a crucial role in this installation.

I am creating a voluminous installation to point out the fragility and ambiguity of the human and object experience and how this can be reflected in visual form. I am combining large, attention-grabbing works with smaller ones, a little lost in space, but no less visible.

I perceive the window gallery space as an important part of the installation and integrating my works into it in a site-specific way.

In my installations, I try to change the general perception of viewers about ordinary objects that they see every day. When they see them in other contexts and connections, it inevitably raises many questions. By distorting the original functions of objects, disassembling them, or combining them with different materials, I give room for reflection on how many different meanings they can contain and how fragile all these meanings are.

artist bio

Anna Ugolkova graduated from the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague with an MFA in visual art in 2019, presenting a mixed media installation “Island”. Anna’s research interests include poetry and memory in art, object-oriented ontology studies, performative objects and installation studies.

Anna’s installations consist of a variety of elements: from paintings, sculptures – found and reworked by her or created from scratch – to photographs, video art and performance. She has exhibited and performed at venues in the Czech Republic, Canada and Austria, including the Kampus Hybernska Gallery, Prague, Deer Lake Gallery, Burnaby, AUArts Summer Residency Exhibition, Calgary, 13th Prague Quadriennal and Fries Theater, Innsbruck.

Alongside her art practice in 2019 she established jewelry line UGALKAVA, where she is researching borders between contemporary art and design and creating abstract silver and gold jewelry using the lost wax technique.

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