Anna Guseva:
"Inside me there is a goose creating geese ..."

From February 13 to February 27, the first solo exhibition of paintings by Anna Guseva “The Goose / The Goose” will be held at the Zeppelin Gallery in the Novinsky Trade Center. In anticipation of the opening, our correspondent interviewed the artist.

Tell me how you became an artist.

A. I did not dream of being an artist until one day I woke up and realized: I am an artist! Awareness of this came much easier and more natural than the realization of all those years that I had before lived in the illusion that I want to be realized in the acting profession.

I had an operation, for some time I couldn’t walk, and I was already very sad about this, but I started painting objects that fell into my arm with acrylic paint (it became much more fun right away!), Then a few canvases… until I started a goose appeared. It delighted me! I was just drawing something, and in the end I suddenly saw a bright strict bird on a yellow background. My first reaction was: “Who did this? Am I what? ”He seemed to draw himself, settled inside me, and through the prism of this bird the world became so light, long-necked, feathered and joyful! It became clear where and why to go!

Indeed, you seem to be looking at the world through a goose-shaped frame. Why is it a goose?

We ourselves make the world complex, incomprehensible, we love to confuse everything in life. Very often we do not know how to distinguish our whims from what we really need, to trust our hearts… But the goose - can! The world can change if you look at the goose and consider it in all its glory. Without prejudice, conceptual difficulties, without fears and complexes. Here is a goose: it is bright and light! And if you smile, looking at him, then the world is changing a little. And this is art, my art is for you!

My consciousness needs to create objects. Geese on canvas, on cardboard, iron, wood, in the form of a sculpture, in a book, everywhere… Each bird is not just a picture. This is my feeling of the current moment, my joys and sorrows, and this is what I can interest, captivate the viewer. After all, there is nothing more interesting than honesty. Namely, geese act as my translator of honesty.

It is on them that everything about me can be read and seen. Because the goose making goose lives inside of me. I really treat them like children. It is important for me that they get to people who are in love with them. Who felt something similar to themselves, with their life and with their honesty. Not every goose will do. This is a certain kind of gradation. You need to look closely, feel and see your own in a combination of colors and shades.

What art inspires you?

It’s easy to impress me. I perceive a lot subjectively, according to emotional and physical sensations. Once in the Louvre I burst into tears near the triptych of Jan van Eyck, because it turned out that there was a tear on the face of Mary Magdalene, who looked at Jesus, and on the reproductions that I looked at at lectures on the history of fine art, she was not visible. I admire everything that the artists of the Northern Renaissance (XV-XVII centuries) did, wrote ecstatically reports on Dürer, and somehow stood for two hours at Bosch’s work “The Last Judgment”.

At the same time, pop art, abstract expressionism and postmodernism are close to me. I love the scale and color! I am inspired by the works of many masters of modern art: these are the confused, chaotic lines of Saya Twombly, and the bright, always filled with the plot works of David Hockney, the “splashes” of Jackson Pollock, the portraits of our contemporary Francoise Nelli painted in large strokes, and the unconditional idol - Takashi Murakami! In my works you can always see "hello" to any of them. I am also very friendly with many street art artists, they admire their freedom of expression. These are desperate romantics who are not afraid to take risks - Krink, Mod2, Jose Parla, and many others.

What do you see your creative mission?

Art and charm - aren’t these synonyms? Oddly enough this sounds, but the world in which we live is, by its very nature, very harmonious. There is a lot of strange and frightening in it, and sometimes it seems that everything is going to hell, but I am firmly convinced that there is just as much in it as you need! Good and evil, beauty and ugliness, grief and joy… Art occupies its own niche, this is that part of reality that is designed to captivate, distract, relax, but at the same time makes you think, act, react. This is a necessary link in the chain of other phenomena of our being.

And the geese and I have our own mission on Earth: to give joy, smiles and happiness! It seems to me that we all often lack this. If you think about what colors a smile has?.. Yellow? Pink? Orange? They are all here! My work with a black background vividly illustrates this idea. Around everything can be black, nondescript, whatever… But if you can scatter colorful circles, triangles, fluorescent droplets of joy around you, and feel holistic, multidimensional, full-fledged, then you are loyal to yourself and happy!

Or, you are a GOES.

Is your creative union with Gus a long time? Or will he be replaced by new heroes?

For three years now, geese have been wandering from canvas to pillows, curtains, various textiles, souvenirs. They were sold at fairs, design exhibitions, which at some point led me to create a small brand with the same name GUSEVA ART (guseva.org) . At this stage, the birds, it seems to me, have reached the finish line and plan to debut in two categories:

the first is the publication of a publication called “Goosevakniga”, which is designed to spread the goose to the masses through illustrations on nice pages of the catalog;

the second is a personal exhibition at the Zeppelin Moscow Gallery.

After which, I have not decided yet whether I will continue to draw geese, or if I go over to the penguins. But it is very important that now these birds are the main theme of my work and proudly step further straight into the collaboration with the Italian brand of glasses Italia Independent. I know for sure that it will be cosmicly bright! So goose stories go on!

What are your expectations for the upcoming exhibition?

This is the whole point. I learned not to expect from anyone and from anything… I know that I can create an intention. And it will be it that will lead me forward. Thanks to the exhibition, I intend to meet in the eyes of its visitors a sense of joyful discovery, discovery, understanding of what they see in the geese and what responds to them in the process of interacting with my works.

And test your theory of gradation, of course.

Creative biography of Anna Guseva

2013 - Participation in the 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art.

2013 - Art Cocktail, Brugge National Exhibition Center.

2013 - entry into the Creative Union of Artists of Russia.

2014 - The Third Rome Project for the exhibition Urban Metamorphoses. Warming Moscow ”on the Kuznetsk Bridge.