Olga Yukhtina - Geoghegan was born in Ukhta in the far North of Russia in 1965.
At the age of ten she was offered a place at the Leningrad Academy of Art's special art school. On leaving
school she immediately won a place at the prestigious Leningrad (St. Petersburg) Academy of Art where she
began a lengthy, formal training in painting and theatrical decoration under Professor Kochergin, the Chief
Artistic Designer at the Maly Theatre, St. Petersburg, which regularly tours to London and other European
cities. She worked for a spell in the Kirov (Mariinsky) and Maly theatres as a scene painter before exhibiting
throughout Europe. In 1998 she moved to London where she has participated in a number of joint and solo
exhibitions. Her works can be found in private collections all round the world.
EXHIBITIONS
2010 Marbella International Art Festival, Marbella, Spain
2010 The Russian, Eastern and Oriental Art Fair, Park Lane Hotel, Picadilly, London
2008 The Scotland-Russia Forum, 9 South College St., Edinburgh, Scotland
2006 Artist’s Kew. The Royal Botanical Society, Kew Gardens, London.
2006 Artists’ Kew. Messum’s Gallery, Cork Street and Kew Gardens.
2005 Annual Exhibition, Prince Charles’ Drawing School, London
2005 Exhibition of Contemporary Russian Artists, Solana Art Gallery, GazProm House, Kingston, London
2004 Annual Exhibition. The Royal Society of Portrait Painters. The Mall Gallery, London.
2002 The View Exhibition. Waterstone’s Bookshop, Picadilly, London.
2001 Summer Exhibition. John Martin Gallery, Albermarle St., Picadilly, London.
2000 Solo Exhibition. Lauderdale House, Highgate, London.
1999 Group Exhibition. The Association of Russian Artists, London
1998 Solo Exhibition. The International Cultural Centre, "Dom Druzhby". Petersburg. Russia.
1989-1997 Selected by the Petersburg Union of Artists to exhibit at their annual Summer and Winter
Shows. Manezh Exhibition Hall, St. Petersburg.
1992 Group Exhibition, 1020 Gallery. Vienna. Austria.
1991 "Apteka Poel" Merz Gallery London. England.
1990 Group Exhibition. Concordia Foundation. London. England.
1988 “Drawings and Paintings by outstanding young artists from the Leningrad Academy of Art”. The
New York Academy of Art. U.S.A.
1988 First Exhibition of Independent Artists. St. Petersburg. Russia.
1988 Exhibition. "In Celebration of 2,000 years of Christianity in Russia". The Yelaginsky Palace. St.
Petersburg. Russia.
PUBLICATIONS
2006 “Artists’ Kew”, published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, London, Surrey, TW9 3AB,
U.K. British Library ISBN No. 1842461435
2005 “A Collection of Modern Russian Art”, published by Solana Fine Art Limited and Gazprom Marketing
and Trading Ltd., 60 Marina Place, Hampton Wick, Kingston upon Thames, London KT1 4BH.
2002 “The View. An Exhibition about Richmond Hill”, published by the Asgill House Trust in Association
with the London Arcadia Partnership, Asgill House, Richmond, London, Surrey, TW9 1PQ, U.K.
1995 “Academic Drawings”, The Russian Academy of Arts, the St. Petersburg I.E. Repin State Academic
Institute of painting, sculpture and Architecture, published by “Izobrazitelnoye Isskustvo”, Moscow.
Freeing the Subject Within: a reading of the paintings of Olga Geoghegan.
Half-seen figures emerge from colour-drenched density; ambiguous gestures, singing mouths, slim limbed
boys… but if you ask Olga Geoghegan about the subject of her paintings she’ll dismiss you with a wave of her
hand and an ironic grin “you want literature? Go and read a book. Paintings aren’t about anything, they’re just
paintings”.
On one level, she’s right. Olga’s paintings are about painting; about its very substance, about the process,
and even about paint itself. The four walls of the canvas enclose a world sustained by its own integrity, with its
unique language and reference points; her complex overlaying of rich colours and textures draw one into a
sensual world of abstract beauty where the activities of the figures seem to matter little. Here one feels the
hand and eye of an artist for whom, schooled by masters since she was a child, composition and the
manipulation of colour have become close to pure instinct.
But there is another level; Olga’s paintings do have a subject, a subject that runs through the very bone
marrow of human consciousness, and is as old, and as contemporary, as humanity itself. Her subject is of
exile and its effects of alienation, and dislocation.
That exile and alienation should have become the theme of Olga’s work is no surprise. Olga was born in
Ukhta, a town built by Stalin in Russia’s bleak north. Its purpose was to be the administrative centre for the
northern prison zone. The town’s occupants were those released from the camp but who were forbidden to
return to life in Moscow or Leningrad. These political prisoners lingered in enforced perpetual exile in Ukhta.
They shared the town with those who had been drafted in by the state to carry out the oft unsavoury tasks
required by the prison industry. However, when Olga was ten her prodigious talent led to her being accepted at
the special artist’s boarding school in Leningrad. It was thousands of kilometres from Ukhta and from home;
she remembers it feeling like an exile.
Young Olga did well in her new Leningrad life. She became a graduate of the highly prestigious Leningrad
Academy. She graduated at a time when students leaving the Academy found themselves in a world which
was no longer readable. If alienation is a disease whose contemporary forms are particularly virulent, post-
Soviet Russia merits its own chapter in the casebook. Since the collapse, nearly 20 years ago, of the social
experiment that had defined it, the Russian collective consciousness has been traumatised. Russia has
become divorced from its own history. Russians now try to make sense of their own lives privately and
tentatively. The world offers them few clues and no certainty. In the mafia dominated 1990s many Russian
artists left their country. Olga was one of them. She now lives in London where she is married. Her two sons
provide the inspiration for the children in her paintings.
Olga’s characters are archetypes; mothers, sons, brides, matriarchs and maidens. They play out allegorical
roles variously representing the seasons, celebrating ancient rites, performing shamanic dances or
trumpeting on enormous, archaic horns. Her colours imply vivacity and joy but there is, throughout her work, an
unsettling ambivalence; Olga’s use of light can lend an eerie quality of nightmare to her scenes of apparent
celebration. One asks if her dancers are really dancing or perhaps, like Stravinsky’s heroine, dying? Is the girl
in “Lullaby” singing to a sleeping child or howling at a funeral wake?
The macabre does not define Olga’s work. The series “Children of the Fisherman” celebrates the beauty of
life itself. The cool unselfconscious bodies of young boys fishing at the water’s edge are realised in a thick
impasto. This technique, along with the colours and theme, puts one in mind of antique frescos. But in this
scene of calm beauty the children do not relate to one another; each is absorbed in his own world, reflective
and alone. Olga’s allegorical “seasons” are Russian women, each depicted in rich individual colour and each
echoing historical depictions of women in art. There are mingled echoes of Rococo and of the portraits of
Vermeer and Velazquez. The layers of paint reflect the layers of inference. How seductive an idea to paint the
seasons, how delightful it is for us to compare the colours, moods and contrasts in each of the four paintings.
We are transported to childhood captivation by rich illustrations in large old books on a rainy day. Yet these
paintings suggest also the loneliness of portraiture with the single person isolated in their own distinct little
frame.
The intensely political environment of her formative years did nothing to stint Olga’s young imagination which
raced freely in another realm. Russianness and all its forms became her passion. It supplied a rich stock of
material to glean from: its high culture and folklore; the heroes of literature; fairy stories; the aesthetic of rustic
life: the steam baths: food, tea, music and songs. Her other passion was of course art and the history of art.
So when this very Russian artist who has found herself so many miles from home paints, almost despite
herself, there emerge on her canvases myriad characters. They scramble through the layers of paint like
ghosts until they find a means to be seen. The Russian maidens meet the howling infants. Misshaped
goddesses mingle among the shamanic sorcerers. The wild musicians try to catch the ear of the pensive
fisher boys.
Michelangelo said that what he did was to cut away the unnecessary to find the form waiting inside the stone.
Perhaps this is what the creative process is for Olga Geoghegan, She pushes paint around a canvas to reveal
the subject trapped within.
Elizabeth Simoneau
International Association of Art Critics (AIS AICA)
Burgundy, France 2008
At the age of ten she was offered a place at the Leningrad Academy of Art's special art school. On leaving
school she immediately won a place at the prestigious Leningrad (St. Petersburg) Academy of Art where she
began a lengthy, formal training in painting and theatrical decoration under Professor Kochergin, the Chief
Artistic Designer at the Maly Theatre, St. Petersburg, which regularly tours to London and other European
cities. She worked for a spell in the Kirov (Mariinsky) and Maly theatres as a scene painter before exhibiting
throughout Europe. In 1998 she moved to London where she has participated in a number of joint and solo
exhibitions. Her works can be found in private collections all round the world.
EXHIBITIONS
2010 Marbella International Art Festival, Marbella, Spain
2010 The Russian, Eastern and Oriental Art Fair, Park Lane Hotel, Picadilly, London
2008 The Scotland-Russia Forum, 9 South College St., Edinburgh, Scotland
2006 Artist’s Kew. The Royal Botanical Society, Kew Gardens, London.
2006 Artists’ Kew. Messum’s Gallery, Cork Street and Kew Gardens.
2005 Annual Exhibition, Prince Charles’ Drawing School, London
2005 Exhibition of Contemporary Russian Artists, Solana Art Gallery, GazProm House, Kingston, London
2004 Annual Exhibition. The Royal Society of Portrait Painters. The Mall Gallery, London.
2002 The View Exhibition. Waterstone’s Bookshop, Picadilly, London.
2001 Summer Exhibition. John Martin Gallery, Albermarle St., Picadilly, London.
2000 Solo Exhibition. Lauderdale House, Highgate, London.
1999 Group Exhibition. The Association of Russian Artists, London
1998 Solo Exhibition. The International Cultural Centre, "Dom Druzhby". Petersburg. Russia.
1989-1997 Selected by the Petersburg Union of Artists to exhibit at their annual Summer and Winter
Shows. Manezh Exhibition Hall, St. Petersburg.
1992 Group Exhibition, 1020 Gallery. Vienna. Austria.
1991 "Apteka Poel" Merz Gallery London. England.
1990 Group Exhibition. Concordia Foundation. London. England.
1988 “Drawings and Paintings by outstanding young artists from the Leningrad Academy of Art”. The
New York Academy of Art. U.S.A.
1988 First Exhibition of Independent Artists. St. Petersburg. Russia.
1988 Exhibition. "In Celebration of 2,000 years of Christianity in Russia". The Yelaginsky Palace. St.
Petersburg. Russia.
PUBLICATIONS
2006 “Artists’ Kew”, published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, London, Surrey, TW9 3AB,
U.K. British Library ISBN No. 1842461435
2005 “A Collection of Modern Russian Art”, published by Solana Fine Art Limited and Gazprom Marketing
and Trading Ltd., 60 Marina Place, Hampton Wick, Kingston upon Thames, London KT1 4BH.
2002 “The View. An Exhibition about Richmond Hill”, published by the Asgill House Trust in Association
with the London Arcadia Partnership, Asgill House, Richmond, London, Surrey, TW9 1PQ, U.K.
1995 “Academic Drawings”, The Russian Academy of Arts, the St. Petersburg I.E. Repin State Academic
Institute of painting, sculpture and Architecture, published by “Izobrazitelnoye Isskustvo”, Moscow.
Freeing the Subject Within: a reading of the paintings of Olga Geoghegan.
Half-seen figures emerge from colour-drenched density; ambiguous gestures, singing mouths, slim limbed
boys… but if you ask Olga Geoghegan about the subject of her paintings she’ll dismiss you with a wave of her
hand and an ironic grin “you want literature? Go and read a book. Paintings aren’t about anything, they’re just
paintings”.
On one level, she’s right. Olga’s paintings are about painting; about its very substance, about the process,
and even about paint itself. The four walls of the canvas enclose a world sustained by its own integrity, with its
unique language and reference points; her complex overlaying of rich colours and textures draw one into a
sensual world of abstract beauty where the activities of the figures seem to matter little. Here one feels the
hand and eye of an artist for whom, schooled by masters since she was a child, composition and the
manipulation of colour have become close to pure instinct.
But there is another level; Olga’s paintings do have a subject, a subject that runs through the very bone
marrow of human consciousness, and is as old, and as contemporary, as humanity itself. Her subject is of
exile and its effects of alienation, and dislocation.
That exile and alienation should have become the theme of Olga’s work is no surprise. Olga was born in
Ukhta, a town built by Stalin in Russia’s bleak north. Its purpose was to be the administrative centre for the
northern prison zone. The town’s occupants were those released from the camp but who were forbidden to
return to life in Moscow or Leningrad. These political prisoners lingered in enforced perpetual exile in Ukhta.
They shared the town with those who had been drafted in by the state to carry out the oft unsavoury tasks
required by the prison industry. However, when Olga was ten her prodigious talent led to her being accepted at
the special artist’s boarding school in Leningrad. It was thousands of kilometres from Ukhta and from home;
she remembers it feeling like an exile.
Young Olga did well in her new Leningrad life. She became a graduate of the highly prestigious Leningrad
Academy. She graduated at a time when students leaving the Academy found themselves in a world which
was no longer readable. If alienation is a disease whose contemporary forms are particularly virulent, post-
Soviet Russia merits its own chapter in the casebook. Since the collapse, nearly 20 years ago, of the social
experiment that had defined it, the Russian collective consciousness has been traumatised. Russia has
become divorced from its own history. Russians now try to make sense of their own lives privately and
tentatively. The world offers them few clues and no certainty. In the mafia dominated 1990s many Russian
artists left their country. Olga was one of them. She now lives in London where she is married. Her two sons
provide the inspiration for the children in her paintings.
Olga’s characters are archetypes; mothers, sons, brides, matriarchs and maidens. They play out allegorical
roles variously representing the seasons, celebrating ancient rites, performing shamanic dances or
trumpeting on enormous, archaic horns. Her colours imply vivacity and joy but there is, throughout her work, an
unsettling ambivalence; Olga’s use of light can lend an eerie quality of nightmare to her scenes of apparent
celebration. One asks if her dancers are really dancing or perhaps, like Stravinsky’s heroine, dying? Is the girl
in “Lullaby” singing to a sleeping child or howling at a funeral wake?
The macabre does not define Olga’s work. The series “Children of the Fisherman” celebrates the beauty of
life itself. The cool unselfconscious bodies of young boys fishing at the water’s edge are realised in a thick
impasto. This technique, along with the colours and theme, puts one in mind of antique frescos. But in this
scene of calm beauty the children do not relate to one another; each is absorbed in his own world, reflective
and alone. Olga’s allegorical “seasons” are Russian women, each depicted in rich individual colour and each
echoing historical depictions of women in art. There are mingled echoes of Rococo and of the portraits of
Vermeer and Velazquez. The layers of paint reflect the layers of inference. How seductive an idea to paint the
seasons, how delightful it is for us to compare the colours, moods and contrasts in each of the four paintings.
We are transported to childhood captivation by rich illustrations in large old books on a rainy day. Yet these
paintings suggest also the loneliness of portraiture with the single person isolated in their own distinct little
frame.
The intensely political environment of her formative years did nothing to stint Olga’s young imagination which
raced freely in another realm. Russianness and all its forms became her passion. It supplied a rich stock of
material to glean from: its high culture and folklore; the heroes of literature; fairy stories; the aesthetic of rustic
life: the steam baths: food, tea, music and songs. Her other passion was of course art and the history of art.
So when this very Russian artist who has found herself so many miles from home paints, almost despite
herself, there emerge on her canvases myriad characters. They scramble through the layers of paint like
ghosts until they find a means to be seen. The Russian maidens meet the howling infants. Misshaped
goddesses mingle among the shamanic sorcerers. The wild musicians try to catch the ear of the pensive
fisher boys.
Michelangelo said that what he did was to cut away the unnecessary to find the form waiting inside the stone.
Perhaps this is what the creative process is for Olga Geoghegan, She pushes paint around a canvas to reveal
the subject trapped within.
Elizabeth Simoneau
International Association of Art Critics (AIS AICA)
Burgundy, France 2008
| © Copyright 2008, Silvana Gallery, All Rights Reserved |
| biography |
1731 West Glenoaks Blvd. Suite 200, Glendale, CA 91201 Tel. 818 662 7070 Fax 818 662 7075
Tel. 818-662-7070 Fax 818-662-7075