The dance of shadows.
There are different sources on which we feed in our quest for peace, equivalence and harmony. Artist Oksana Veber founds harmony in the beauty of the landscape, still life, woman's face, which, transferred into the harmony of colors and forms continue they life in art work. Guiding her through the need for equivalence and exploring themes like peace, harmony and emptiness, the artist – influenced by the ideas of Taoism and Eastern philosophy - transferred her longing and revelation on the canvas. From her first works to the present days she developed her work relayed on that same philosophical thought, developing her work by changing it through different styles and exploring the medium of painting and yet modulating it according to her spirit and inspiration she founds inside herself. Female portrait is main motive in most of the paintings. It is usually shown as sensual figure, with full lips, almond eyes, and slightly tipped head, that leads us in world of dreams and fairytales. Two paths lead us when we follow this mystic. One has roots are in Jugendstil (Art Noveau) and further in art of Japan that was inspiration to Jugendstil, and in Russian fairytales that we can find in work of Chagall, and the other in tendency toward harmony in choosing colors that evoke Kandinsky and Marc. Artist settles her characters on the background defined with colorist effects, that are, unlike in her early works when they were much expressive and with vivid tones, tranquil and given in pastel tones of blue-gray combination and beige in gradations. Colors, painted in wide brush-strokes combine anintrusivly and melt one in another, making abstraction that in some works could be defined piece in manner of abstract expressionism. On that background painter successfully adds figuration with tiny, playful black lines that give sparkle to meditative tranquility of background and open space to a new story. Much more than in early works now appear double portraits or even more characters on one painting. To former motifs of landscapes and dreamy female figures author adds new inspiration – motif of birds, fishes, music instruments and pottery that she brings in correlation with main subject. She paints them like the main motif with the same, almost calligraphic, brush-strokes and intensifies some silhouettes fulfilling them with color. In adding those motives, although they bring their own poetry, we can feel transfer to greater opening to the world. Now characters are not so alone, closed up in their dreams and wrapped in shroud of mystic, on contrary, they have opened path forward observer through subtle communication with objects it is surrounded with.
Koraljka Alavanja November 2009
„Shadow dance“, Antic Glass museum Zadar, Zadar, Wednesday, 25. November 2009