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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)
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.
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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
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1991 |
State Museum of Fine Art, Kiev,
Ukraine College Marie Victorin, Montréal, Québec
Stewart Hall Gallery, Pointe-Claire, Québec
Galerie Frédéric Palardy, Montréal, Québec
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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
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1984 |
Vick Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta Graphica Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta
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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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