Andrey Olenev / b.1993, Russia / lives and works in Nizhny Novgorod

The 5th Ural Biennial Main Project features the work:

Untitled, 2019 (Mural: acrylic paint, 2055×420 сm)

The plant still bears signs of the presence of a staff artist. Wall drawings, hand-drawn and -glued GOST State Standard sheets, scenery on the stage of the local recreation centre (or Palace of Culture, as they were called) that we can see in old photographs are all nameless and wordless artefacts, the results of someone’s work. A large-scale mural on the walls of room No. 18 reproduces a hypothetical group portrait, an unrealistic scene from the factory life. This work by another artist was not created for the plant, it is about the plant. It overpowers the viewer with its totality, makes him a part of a frozen collective action. The motif of depersonalization is crucial for the practice of the artist Andrey Olenev. Taking physicality away from the drawing, he pictures a certain plant worker, transparent and invisible, that exists only within the plant walls. The artist acts as an invited screenwriter when he arranges a composition of aeriform work robes, among which there are no main and secondary characters.