‘Plain. Volume. Movement’. Artist Alisa Gorshenina Organised a Master Class at HSE Art and Design School

© HSE University Art and Design School

A master class by the artist Alisa Gorshenina took place in HSE Art and Design School in March. Over three days participants created their works, using stop motion animation techniques under Alisa's guidance. This article offers a look at the resulting work and shares some of Alisa and the participants’ impressions of the master class.

The first meeting with Alisa Gorshenina was held online and was focused on the illustration techniques that the artist practiced when she was a student. The second meeting was aimed at creating a three-dimensional portrait, and the third meeting resulted in each participant's own completed work—an animated three-dimensional piece.

Alisa Gorshenina

Our meetings were something like therapy. Nowadays, it is particularly important to communicate with people, and to spend time together. For me personally, the meeting was an emotional outlet as I was able to work closely together with the participants. Collaborative creativity has the power to energize you. Not only did I share my experience, but I also got a lot back.

Alisa Gorshenina told us about the master class.

Alisa Gorshenina (also known as Alice Hualice) is an artist working in a variety of techniques, ranging from painting, graphics, and textile sculptures to video art, animation, and digital collages.

When HSE Art and Design School invited me to hold a master class, my first thought was that I wouldn’t be able to teach anyone anything, since my work is very spontaneous and I improvise a lot. Each of my projects is created differently, and there are no clear-cut techniques. However, I have a lot to say and I do want to share my experience with other artists. I decided to divide the master class into three stages, each one symbolizing something that I had done myself, or phases of my own work. I started my artistic career as an illustrator, then I moved on to using 3-D techniques and creating masks. Later, I brought my work to life and started using video art and animation. I chose self-portraiture as the key theme of my work. I think we can all learn a lot about ourselves by making self-portraits. Such works are very honest—when making a self-portrait, one is unlikely to be economical with the truth. It's direct self-experience, which I often practice myself.

In the first session, I wanted to share my own experiments from when I was studying and illustrating. Different drawing techniques, such as drawing with one’s non-dominant hand, or drawing with your eyes closed. Personally, I do this to free my hands and feel a direct impulse where I don't analyze what I'm doing or try to force my hand to draw what I want, but I just give myself over to the process, and create freely.

In the second session, we moved on to 3-D works, with the participants choosing either their usual materials or those they had never worked with, and we gave our portraits volume.

For the third stage, these portraits needed to come to life. The original theme was abstraction. I wanted everyone to work on their own image, look at themselves in the mirror, see their own features, listen to themselves and represent themselves, firstly via in a flat self-portrait and then in a three-dimensional form.

I believe that all the participants were finally able to reflect the emotions of their day in their works in one way or another. There were many emotional pieces, and there were also a lot abstract works. But most importantly, they were all different and individual. Each participant portrayed themself in a unique way.

Our meetings were something like therapy. Nowadays, it is particularly important to communicate with people, and to spend time together. For me personally, the meeting was an emotional outlet as I was able to work closely together with the participants. Collaborative creativity has the power to energize you. Not only did I share my experience, but I also got a lot back.

Works created by the participants of the master class

Vlada Pashevich. ‘Night’

‘I definitely want to continue working with textiles. Until now, my main medium has been collage, working exclusively with different kinds of paper. After this master class, I thought I would like to try creating something similar, but with scraps of fabric.’

Vlada Pashevich: ‘I have never used self-portraiture in my art, although it is a large enough stratum to rely on when working on different projects. It might be due to a kind of separation between the internal and external, so it was particularly interesting to try and focus on the external, to look at myself and convey my condition by creating a textile object that resembles my face. I definitely want to continue working with textiles. Until now my main medium has been collage, working exclusively with different kinds of paper. After the master class, I thought I would like to try creating something similar, but with scraps of fabric. I also want to repeat the nylon and batting technique Alice demonstrated. It is amazing what unexpected things you can create by using just these two materials.’

Katerina Kosterina

‘I have always been interested in the theme of metamorphosis, but now the need for change is felt more than ever before. We are not always prepared for changes, but they can offer a lot of opportunities. And in the place of the old, something new is bound to appear.’

Katerina Kosterina: ‘The acid caterpillar and its transformation into a butterfly is nothing but my self-portrait. While it bears no external resemblance, it conveys my inner world. I have always been interested in the theme of metamorphosis, but now the need for change is felt more than ever before. We are not always prepared for changes, but they can offer a lot of opportunities. And in the place of the old, something new is bound to appear. I didn’t have any ideas in my mind when I was going to the master class as I am now preoccupied with other things. I trusted the process. It was a novelty to try the technique of creating three-dimensional characters out of batting, it was the first time I had done such animation too. The acid green fabric was chosen for a reason: I was going to use chroma key to make a slightly more complicated project, but I wasn’t able to do everything as I had planned. However, a start has been made, and I hope that this experience will result in something interesting.’

Lilit Biryukova

‘My project is a self-portrait and a reflection on what is happening around.’

Lilit Biryukova: ‘Since the very first zoom meeting, where Alice taught us to study and draw our faces, I’ve been  thinking about how I see myself. A wonderful process of reinvention and self-identification was triggered. That's what I tried to capture in my work. I often use collage techniques in my work and I have long wanted to try out a 3-D format. So I am very happy that I was able to experiment with new materials and to work with something rounded and tangible—something that can be touched, deformed, hung on the wall or embraced. I will definitely be using these new techniques I've learned in my future projects. I don't know how exactly, but I certainly will. You understand and feel everything at once in a personal interaction with the artist. I have learned new tricks both in digital and manual techniques. I managed to do what I have been doing for such a long time, but in some magical new waye.’

Sofia Skorokhodova

‘This sketch is a small visual study of folk traditions. The concept of the main character, a stolbushka doll, reminds me of the log from which Geppetto carved Pinocchio.’

Sofia Skorokhodova: ‘This sketch is a small visual study of folk traditions. The concept of the main character, a stolbushka doll, reminds me of the log from which Geppetto carved Pinocchio. This animation, as a result of which a trickster is born, made my wooden amulet come alive. After the master class, I’m no longer afraid of multidisciplinary projects, where I have to be a Jack-of-All-Trades. That fear has gone, and instead, there are new opportunities to create and develop your own worlds. First of all, I really wanted to interact with Alice both as an artist and as a person. Working in the same space and creative coexistence, even for a short period of time, fuels and recharges us, which is very important and necessary, especially nowadays.’

Participants of the master class

Ekaterina Gusakova, Vladislava Pashevich, Olga Trofimova, Veronica Neputina, Daria Shmeleva, Yanita Gaifutdinova, Alina Shibneva, Yulia Kirillova, Aleksandra Salisova, Sofia Skorohodova, Katerina Kosterina, Aleksandra Segova, Elizaveta Ivanova, Anna Aseeva, Lilit Biryukova.

The master class was held by the HSE Art and Design School. The School offers bachelor’s programmes, master’s programmes, and supplementary educational programmes of HSE University in the field of contemporary art, as well as exhibitions and art projects involving HSE students and staff.

HSE Art and Design School includes the following Bachelor’s programmes: ‘Design and Contemporary Art’, ‘Artist and Curator’, ‘Media Art’, ‘Sound Art and Sound Design’, ‘Screen Arts’; and the following Master's programmes: ‘Contemporary Painting’, ‘Photography’, ‘Printmaking’, ‘Video Art’, ‘Sound Art&Sound Studies’, ‘Theatre and Performance’, ‘Art&Science’, ‘Ceramics and Textiles’.

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