Yevgeniya Mikhailik

Lives and works in Santa Ana, CA, USA

Artist statement

I am an artist, educator, and curator based in Orange County, CA. My work is a study of the forces that shape the Earth’s landscape, both naturally occurring and resulting from human activity. The immensity of the Earth and the slow pace of its development are impossible for an individual to fully grasp in a single lifetime, a comparative blink-of-an-eye to the age of the planet; but our ability to relate to events and changes that we personally struggle with – growth, aging, scarcity, instability, social conflict, etc. – can be a link to understanding and relating to phenomena in the natural world. By drawing parallels between geological events and personal-scale changes as experienced by an individual or a group, my work aims to evoke empathy towards the evolving natural environment in the same way we empathize with each other. It asks the viewer to imagine engaging with the real landscape as intimately and intensely as we do with ourselves and other human beings, to experience the natural world slowly by being present and attentive, to attempt to understand its processes, and to observe the ways in which our involvement in and disruption of the environment has a lasting effect.

Artwork