The March to Tashkent

Here is another piece from my show at the Rothick Arthaus. Entitled The March to Tashkent, it is based on a time when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, while still serving time in the labor camps (gulags), had to go to a hospital in Tashkent because of a tumor. His tumor was removed, but the cancer was not diagnosed for a few more years, almost killing him (I know what that feels like). This hospital in Tashkent was the inspiration for his novel Cancer Ward, a story where he used tumors as a metaphor for  the problems in Russia. The novel is also the basis for most of my artwork in this show.

The March to Tashkent is ink, acrylic, and newspaper on wood panel. 24" x 32"

Portraits

Vadim (lives!)

Pavel Nikolayevich Rusanov

Friedrich Federau

Aleksei Filippovich Shulubin

Oleg Filimonovich Kostoglotov

These are all small 8" x 10" portraits of some of the characters in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's book Cancer Ward (the same book I used for the background of Aleksandr's portrait). I was originally going to make eleven portraits to coincide with the eleven patients in Cancer Ward, (which also happens to be the number of years Aleksandr spent in labor camps and the number of flowers I made for exactly that reason) but I ran short on time after having quite a few complications... so there may be more of these to come.

Each portrait is ink, oil, and newspaper on wood panel. 8" x 10"

Beginning the Portrait

It is two weeks before the art show at the Rothick, and Im creating things like mad! I have a lot of things I want to do for this show and of course they are all big, detailed, and take a lot of time. So the first one I am starting with is a portrait of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He is a Russian author and Nobel prize winner. He had a pretty crazy life living in Soviet Russia, and writing all of his books in secret. Read his biography on the Nobel prize website.

I started researching Aleksandr a few weeks ago. I stumbled upon his biography while reading up on Russian history. I ordered a few of his books including "Cancer Ward" (which I am currently reading) and "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". I also ordered an extra copy of "Cancer Ward" to use as the background of this piece. Below you can see what Ive done so far, and I will keep posting up my progress daily.

So far I have cooked up some wheatpaste... its super easy, cheap, works really good, and you can eat it (it doesnt taste very good but its just flour and water).
To make your own follow this simple recipe:
for every 3 tablespoons of flour, use 1 cup of water.
heat up water on stove without bringing to boil.
in separate container mix flour with a little water to make it pastey.
then pour into hot pot of water. mix for a few minutes.
I like to strain mine afterwards as I pour into a container, just to make it extra smooth.



Then I cut out pages of the book "Cancer Ward" and began pasting them to this a board. I use an old gift card to press them on there and flatten out any wrinkles.



There you have it.... more coming Monday!