Olenka Garmaziy

Lives and works in Batumi, Georgia

Artist statement

My work often begins with an ordinary situation: a body sitting or lying down, a chair, a piece of clothing, a bed after someone has left it. I am interested in the point where these familiar things stop being descriptive and begin to suggest a presence that is no longer fully visible. I work primarily with acrylic, allowing the process of painting to remain on the surface. Lines from earlier decisions, exposed ground, thin washes, corrections and drips are not removed completely. I am interested in the uncertainty that appears when an image is still holding traces of how it was made. The figures in my paintings are not portraits, and the spaces around them do not describe particular places. I use the body, objects and empty space as different ways of approaching an internal state without naming it directly. A gesture can feel unfinished; an empty chair can become more present than the person who might have occupied it. I don't try to fix a single meaning in these images. I am more interested in what remains open: the distance between presence and absence, between a physical body and the space it leaves behind, and between a finished image and a painting that still shows its own hesitation.

Artwork