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Marina Popova

 

  • born in 1949 in Moscow, Russia
  • immigrated to Montréal, Québec in 1979
  • studied at the Kiev College of Art (1965-1968); M.F.A., Moscow Institute of Textile and Design, Department of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia (1968-1973)

expanded images click on thumbnails at left to view larger images

Marina Popova works with abstracted and geometric forms, using oil and watercolour paint, sometimes combining text with her images. Her use of abstraction points to a rebellion against the Russian Brezhnev era, which favoured representational art. As Popova has stated: "Abstractionism was completely bourgeois art and therefore had been banned by Stalin. It represented different thinking, which meant revolutionary thinking and therefore dangerous thinking" (1992). In the catalogue for Montréal-Moscou (1992), an exhibition of three female Montréal artists (Popova, Luba Genush and Natasha Wrangel) with connections to Soviet Europe, Vladimir Tseltner described her work as the combination of forms basic to universal order in "a massive charge of energy." In her 1993 work, Energy, this movement is portrayed by quickly-scribbled bold black lines over softer blooms of colour. In Through the Window of the same year, planes of colour intersect with sweeping arcs, forms seeming to jump out of forms, piling on top of each other. As Popova herself has explained: "I'm not copying the Russian avant-garde, I'm not interpreting them. I am in dialogue with them" (1992). Tseltner also makes a distinction between Popova and the avant-garde school from which her artwork sprang: "while they constructed form, she is constructing space [and] creates her own space. She builds it with a harmony and a unity" (1992). In this new continuation of the 1930s Russian movement that is adapted to the chaos of the 1990s, Popova is trying to reclaim the movement that was interrupted by Stalin and which she considers to be, because of that interruption, "an unfinished act." Popova's work also includes sets and costumes for theatres in Edmonton, billboards, posters, and murals. Her murals appear in schools throughout Edmonton and also in Kiev, Ukraine, and several were commissioned by the Canadian architect Douglas Cardinal.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

1991 Saint Bruno-de-Montarville Art Centre, Saint Bruno-de-Montarville, Québec

 

1990 Galerie Frédéric Palardy, Montréal, Québec

 

1988 L'Octagone Cultural Centre, Montréal, Québec

 

1987 Dorval Cultural Centre, Dorval, Québec

 

1985 Museum of Russian Contemporary Art in Exile, New York, New York

 

1982 Oxford Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta

 

1979 Kuznetski Most Gallery, Moscow, Russia

 

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

1994 Marina Popova and Serge Lotosky
Galerie Dickens, Montréal, Québec

 

1992 Barbara Silverberg Gallery, Montréal

Montréal - Moscou: Trois artistes, trois femmes, trois vagues, trois générations: Marina Popova, Luba Genush, Natasha Wrangel
Galerie du SAC, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec; Université du Québec, Hull, Québec

 

1991 State Museum of Fine Art, Kiev, Ukraine

College Marie Victorin, Montréal, Québec

Stewart Hall Gallery, Pointe-Claire, Québec

Galerie Frédéric Palardy, Montréal, Québec

 

1990 Hadassa Annual Fair
Montréal, Québec

 

1989 Chicago Art Fair
Ruth Siegal Gallery (New York), Chicago, Illinois

 

1985 Profile Gallery, New York, New York

Prince Demarigny & Casaret, New York, New York

Marie-Tereze Gallery, Paris, France

 

1984 Vick Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta

Graphica Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta

 



COLLECTIONS

Arthur Anderson Accounting, Chicago, Illinois
Royal Bank of Canada, Montréal, Québec
City Bank, Tweed, Hadley and McCloy, New York, New York
Department of External Affairs, Government of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
Museum of Contemporary Russian Art in Exile, Jersey City, New Jersey; Paris, France
Sternz Rhapsody Restaurant, Westmount, Québec
USSR Art Foundation, Moscow, Russia

 



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Choquette, Catherine. "Marina Popova: La renaissance d'un art confisqué." L'Actualité médicale (5 September 1990): n.p.

Eight One-Man Shows. Jersey City, New Jersey: C.A.S.E. Museum of Russian Contemporary Art in Exile, 1985.

Gérin, Annie, Vladimir Pavlovitch Tseltner, Ann Duncan, et al. Montréal - Moscou: Trois artistes, trois femmes, trois vagues, trois générations: Marina Popova, Luba Genush, Natasha Wrangel. Montréal, Québec: Service des activités culturelles, Université de Montréal, 1992.

Matousek, Phylis. "Fringe posters reflect artistic contribution." Edmonton Journal (4 August 1982): n.p.

Nicolov, Borislav. "Montréal - Moscou ou le pèlerinage enchanté." Vie des arts (September 1992): 61-62.

Recent Acquisitions from the Collection. Jersey City, New Jersey: C.A.S.E. Museum of Russian Contemporary Art in Exile, 1985.

Soudeyns, Maurice. Contemporary Art in Québec: The '90s. Montréal, Québec: Société générale d'édition, 1994.

 

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