Bidspirit auction | Olga Rudenko

Olga Rudenko - Putin… Khuylo. Profanity became a language of Ukrainian Resistance against an overwhelming military assault of the Russian Federation and its President Putin. Being Ukrainian with most of my family remaining in the war zone, I felt an emotional need to use this profanity and visualize the absurdity of Putin’s claims.  The central image of the painting is Augmented_Iconography (Olga Rudenko’s concept) depiction of Almighty_O1 holding a carrot and showing  a “middle finger” (visual depiction of the Russian profanity Khuy, Khuylo); referring to the policy of “stick and carrot” and offering an actual carrot to Putin’s claims of Ukrainian territories and culture. The emoji and binary code used in the title and background of the painting are of the same profane nature. About the artist: Olga Rudenko is a Ukrainian-born artist who lives and works in Harlem, New York City. Trained as a stone and wood carver with Seiji Saito at the Art Students League of New York, Olga identifies herself first and foremost as a sculptor working in extensive varieties of mediums: stone, wood, direct cement sculpting, textiles, embroidery, clay board and ink.  Olga holds MS in the History of Philosophy, University of Mykolaiv, Ukraine. At the core of Olga’s artistic practice lies a profound inquiry into the intricate relationship between technology, humanity and culture. Employing fictionalization and archaism, she transforms digital elements into tangible objects, emphasizing their human hand-made origin. By concurrently using AI tools, code, elements of traditional iconography she seamlessly blends reality with myth, transforming the mythical into a realm of augmented reality. www.augmentediconography.com