Welcome to ARINA website!
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the fantastic person and one of the most legendary and influential artists of our time -
Gustav Metzger for his sincere interest in my work. This is a great honour for me to meet Gustav Metzger in person to have an unforgettable pleasure to talk to him and to have his inspirational support and incouragement of my creativity. Arina
The Year's Best Art
The Artist's Magazine, USA
“If a painting needs a lot of explanation, it should have been a book or a song rather than a painting,” says Russian-born artist Arina Gordienko, who identifies herself in the art world with the single name Arina. “I always hope that my paintings can speak for themselves.”
“I use my face as an actress does to express emotions or feelings,” says Arina. The artist deliberately altered details of her likeness so as to best depict the feeling she wanted to convey. Choosing to restrict her palette, Arina paints in monochrome to play up the influence of light, dark and middle tones on the forms. She typically accentuates the central black-and-white image with a single color, most often red.
“In Russian folk or fairy tales, often the word red is equal in meaning to the word beautiful,” she says. In many cultures, the color red is associated with passion, and, as the artist points out, “the images and objects which have been created with passion can take on an immense power that’s sometimes found in religious art—a kind of powerful energy that has an ability to alter one’s mental state and even transform reality.”
Arina has completed her master’s degree in fine arts at Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London. She’s now a full-time artist and says, “For me, painting is like breathing—I just have to do it.”
by Tamera Lenz Muente
December 2009
