An artist born with colour vision deficiency will showcase her love for mythology at the Art 10 Gallery.
Suzanne Orlov, a member of the artist group since 2020, will exhibit approximately 24 pieces, including her ‘Mythology’ show on the gallery’s feature wall.
“I’ve been quite interested in mythology since my childhood,” she said. “When I grew up, I realized that it still interested me so much. And it can be fun, not just for children – reading all these legends and stories.”
While considering her current show, Orlov said she noticed myths and legends are presented and preserved differently in different parts of the world.
“When you compare European legends and fairy tales to Romanian and Greek mythology, you can see the difference. That which stikes me most is in Europe, gods created the world. In western mythology, world created gods – it’s completely opposite,” she said. “The world is dominating – it’s something bigger than gods, demi-gods and people. And you feel like people are equal to gods in western mythology. And this is so interesting. I’ve never read that before in European legends or fairy tales because its a new idea – a whole new idea to me and I was fascinated by that.”
In her show, which was inspired by Greek mythology and ancient folklore, Orlov said she wanted to focus on goddesses, as she felt they were underrepresented, and steered clear from male “muscular” forms.
Hailing originally from Sevastopol, a major port city on the Black Sea and internationally recognized as part of Ukraine, Orlov said she hasn’t yet “bitten” into Slavic mythology in art yet, but may seriously consider it for a future show.
“It’s so rich mythology, Slavic and Eastern European. It’s so much to cover as an artist because they’ve got crazy, funny characters. You cannot even imagine,” she said.
The gestures in her work portray an emotional range through her use of colours – which, until quite recently, she said she hadn’t been brave enough to experiment with.
“I sometimes mix up colours and confuse them … My earlier pieces, they’ve been black and white … When I was able to afford colour-blind glasses … it was such a surprise when I started using skin colour. My friends told me that my skin colours were not green anymore.”
Orlov’s ‘Mythology’ can be viewed at the Art 10 Gallery in Nanaimo North Town Centre until the end of August.
READ MORE: Painter who sees colours differently presents first Nanaimo exhibition
mandy.moraes@nanaimobulletin.com