Advisor: Lorena Salcedo-Watson

God Never Learned How to Love

I used to believe in meaningless art. As long as the image looked interesting, it didn’t matter if it had a deeper meaning behind it. This mentality has led me to creating many works that I liked, but none that I loved. Art stopped being interesting to me, and I began doubting whether I ever really liked being an artist in the first place. What will I do once I graduate? Had I just wasted four years of my life on a pointless degree? Will I make something of myself, or will I fade away like so many other countless artists? My mental health had taken a turn for the worse.

It wasn’t until my senior year that I started making art that meant something, and it wasn’t until I began working on this honors project that I realized just how much these feelings weigh on me. When I wrote my proposal for this project, I wanted to make art about beauty and decay. It was a very open ended idea, and it didn’t really mean anything to me, I was just trying to fill out the form. I have learned a lot about myself over the course of this semester. What started out as an empty, superficial idea became something personal. The art I made for this show finally means something to me. For the first time in my life, I can finally say that I am proud of my work.

This show covers many loosely related subjects. Themes of depression, religion, and change are ever present in my art, even if very subtle. I have changed, and my work has changed. Each work is a piece of me from a different time in my life, like snapshots of the me who I once was. I am not the person I was when I made my first piece, and I will not be the same person when I finally breathe my last breath.

Your sins weigh heavy on your shoulders – colored, Date: May 2023, Dimensions: 20″ x 30″, Medium: lithographic print, colored

This piece is a variation of my print, done with lithographic crayon and chine-colle paper. I think the red helps bring out the details in the fabric which complements the rest of the image. This image took me close to two months and many crayons to finish. The figure at the top stares directly at the viewer, holding up a blank cloth. The frame of the image is based off of medieval artwork that incorporated architecture into the image. The jester balances upon a unicycle, holding up a sphere, referencing the statue of Atlas holding up the world, while also staring at the viewer, The orb is my interpretation of God. The two of them are the centerpiece, sitting at the center of the stage. Below them is an orchestra of angels, each with a different medieval instrument. From left to right, the trumpet, the lute, the harp, and the horn. This selection of instruments was deliberate – in medieval times, they were used for churches and the king’s court, alluding to the religious themes of the imagery. The deer skull and checkerboard pattern references my first piece, The Sacrifice, which featured similar imagery. Religion is a theater and God is the star of the show.

I was raised Christian. Both my parents are Russian Orthodox and while we were not particularly religious, we still went to church every so often and I had to wear a cross at all times. I’ve always been extremely stubborn, so whenever something was forced upon me, I would try my hardest to fight it, like a salmon swimming against the current. God quickly became a hot button issue in my household. Why did I have to worship somebody that I cannot see? Why did I have to wear a headscarf to church, just because I am a woman? How come God, the almighty and all powerful let people starve to death and die of disease? How come the five of us lived in a two bedroom apartment with roaches and leaky plumbing while my friends got to order pizza on Sundays and go to Disneyland? Why was life so unfair? Did He not love us? Did He not love me?

Happiness has never been a guarantee for me. I’ve felt happy before, but it’s like trying to fill a cup with a hole at the bottom – it never stays full for long. This feeling has followed me around for as long as I can remember, and religion only made it worse. The bible is all about loving your neighbor and being kind. If you are good, you are rewarded. If you are bad, you go to hell. If you are bad but you repent, your sins are forgiven and you get to go to heaven. I do good deeds, I try to be kind, and yet, I am never happy.

My father is a complicated man. He was born in 1963 in the heart of the Soviet Union where being smart, white, and male got you a cushy job and a comfortable life. He grew up in a time before capitalism and rapid industrialization ruined the planet for everyone. They had ski slopes in their backyards and fresh fruit and vegetables at their doorsteps. You could buy a house for three cents and still have money to spare. Maybe that’s why he believes in God – because God actually loves him. My father is the most religious one in our family. He prays to an icon of Jesus every night. He goes to church and fasts during the Great Lent. He beats his wife and then repents. He gets to go to heaven. Not me. I think women are attractive so I get to go to hell.

Sinking Feelings, Date: May 2023, Dimensions: 6.5″ x 8.5″, Medium: intaglio etching, watercolored

In this piece, the nude figure is sinking into the murky water, surrounded by a variety of objects: angels, skeletons, electronics, make-up, and many many more. She is bloodied and bruised, but she holds on to a rosary while letting go of the knife. I find myself in her, but also in the objects around her. Many of them reference things I grew up with as well as things that have hurt me. For example, I spend a lot of time and money on make-up because I don’t like how I look without it. The electronics floating around are all older models, like a flip phone and a Nintendo DS, all of which I have grown up with.

I don’t know if I believe in God. I do, however, think there is some merit to it. Practically every civilization had some idea of a higher power before they even interacted with one another. It’s quite interesting to think about. However, the idea of God could also come from fear. We are always afraid – afraid of having no purpose. We want things to have meaning. That’s why so many denounce modern art. There is no purpose in taping a banana to a wall. There is no purpose in randomly splattering paint on a canvas. There is no purpose in painting a black square. It exists just for the sake of existing, and we don’t like that. If there is no purpose to our existence, if there is no afterlife, then why should we be good? What’s stopping me from stealing and killing and having sex with women if there’s no God to punish me for it? If there is no God to reward me for my good deeds, why should I say please and thank you, why should I give up my seat for the pregnant woman on the bus, why should I donate to the less fortunate, why should I do anything selfless if there is no reward in it. If there is no heaven to go to, then selflessness is just suffering for the sake of others.

That’s not to say that I disagree with God. I know people who have benefited from finding God, and are better people than before. For some, the belief in a higher power, one who is merciful and willing to give you a second chance, is enough of a reason to turn their life around. There are people who have led lives of rampant drug use, alcoholism, and pain who are now loving, caring people who might not be here today if not for religion. Those who prayed to God for better times and let that hope drag them out of the dark pits of despair. That’s why I don’t want to denounce religion as a whole, because nothing in this life is black and white.

However, I do despise the way some people go about practicing their religion. I don’t think it’s right to tell children they will go to hell if they don’t pray before their meal or that if they love the wrong person they will be punished for eternity. I don’t think we need God to be good people. If you do a good deed because you expect to be rewarded for it, are you really a good person? Billionaires donate money to charity while letting their workers die in their warehouses and do everything in their power to stop them from unionizing. Are they good people because of their good deeds? Does repenting absolve you of the sins you have committed? Does repenting undo the harm you have done? Can you call yourself a man of devotion and a man of God if you fly by private jet and have a net worth of 800$ million? Does telling God you’re sorry and that you won’t do it again un-beat your wife and un-traumatize your daughters?

That’s what this particular piece is about. It’s about hurt and love. It’s about the struggle of drowning in a pool of the things that make you and the things that hurt you. She’s letting go of the knife, of the pain, and clutching onto the rosary for hope. She’s hurt yet she’s finding the strength to let go instead of feeding into the cycle of pain.

Have your cake and eat it too, Date: May 2023, Dimensions: 13″ x 11″ x 12″ Medium: ceramic, watercolor finish

This piece is my only ceramic piece in the show, as it is not my preferred medium. It is a deconstructed self portrait, with the facial features being loosely based off of my own. The finish is done with watercolor and is meant to look like bruised and bloodied skin. The fork is a handle for the lid, and it opens up to reveal the empty insides. I originally planned to fill the inside with many tiny versions of myself, but I unfortunately ran out of time.

As a child, I was very clumsy. I’d fall down the stairs every other day and I would come home bloodied and covered in cuts from roughhousing with my friends. As I got older, I stopped going outside as much. I didn’t really have friends here in America, and there wasn’t much to do on your own. I spent more and more time on my own in my house, sucked in by free access to TV and internet. By 5th grade, most of my interests revolved around the media I consumed on TV. By the 7th, I was talking to strangers online and spending all my time on Instagram. It was around this time that I started noticing the hole in my chest. At that point, I had been exposed to not only violence at home, but even worse violence online. It had started taking a toll on my mental health and I needed a way to let it out. My “friend” suggested we start hurting ourselves together. That’s where it really started going downhill. The bruises and cuts that I was so fond of as a child were now grim reminders of the dark places that I have been.

Metamorphosis, Date: Fall 2022, Dimensions: 16.5″ x 12.5″, Medium: lithographic print

This piece is a lithographic print, done using the mezzotint technique in which you start with black and then take out the highlights with a razor. This is another loose self portrait.

When I first started college, I had never taken an art class before, so I didn’t know what to expect. Up until that point, I had thought of myself as a weirdo, an outsider, somebody who doesn’t fit in with normal people. I was different from other kids. I was an immigrant from Russia with severe anxiety and depression. I didn’t have many friends growing up, and I was convinced I would be forever on my own. However, as I stepped into that classroom, for the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged. It was in that class that I met Lorena, my professor, advisor, and a woman who accepted me for who I am.

One day, she let me borrow a preserved cicada that she had in her office to use as a reference for a drawing. It was a simple gesture for her, but for me, it meant a lot more than that. Cicadas are a symbol of change and growth. When they molt, they don’t become something entirely new like a butterfly, they simply grow wings and leave their childhood bodies behind. That semester, I left my home, cut my hair, and finally got to spread my wings.

“Ew, Pickles”, Date: February 2023, Dimensions: 15″ x 7.5″, Medium: lithographic print

For this print, I went in a different direction from my usual work. While normally my mark making is very precise and intentional, with this piece I went in with a thicker crayon with little regard for keeping my lines clean. The figure is meant to make you uncomfortable with the direct eye contact. He is staring right at you as he eats a burger made of human flesh. I like to add comedy to some of my work, hence why he’s disgusted at finding a pickle in his food.

Humans are social creatures. We crave the comfort of others and are quick to denounce things we find odd and repulsive. Cannibalism is frowned upon pretty much everywhere in the world, and for good reason. Eating another is seen as disgusting, morally wrong, and an act against God. Even in dire situations where your only option is to eat your fellow man, there is never an excuse for cannibalism. There is a set of photographs I think about often of Russian citizens who were forced to become cannibals to survive. During 1921 and until 1922, Russia suffered a great famine due to the recent revolution and civil wars that eventually led to the rise of the Soviet Union. An estimated 5 million people had died of starvation within the span of that year. Those who lived had to eat their own kind to survive. A black market of human bodies, many of which were children caught outside after dark, was created as Lenin and the bolsheviks continued to let their people starve. In these photographs you can see the despair within the people’s eyes, knowing that they had been driven to commit the greatest of sins just to stay alive. I have originally seen these photographs nearly 10 years ago, and yet I continue to think about them to this day.

However, it would be wrong to say that cannibalism is unnatural. In nature, many animals eat their young to survive. Mother cats will eat their babies if they find them to be weak while hamsters eat their young in times of stress. Even chimpanzees, our closest animal relatives, will eat infants to show dominance. It is part of life, and while I am not excusing the act, nor saying that it is ok, I am looking at it from another, more romantic angle.

Cannibalism is the most intimate you can ever get with another human being. Their flesh becomes your flesh, their life nourishes yours. That kind of intimacy is something we can only dream of.

The Sacrifice, Date: Fall 2022, Dimensions: 20″ x 30″, Medium: lithographic print

This is my first ever lithographic print, and it depicts a woman being sacrificed at an altar by a man in occult robe. He is offering her heart to the beast above him. The beast, a creature based off of the Algonquian legend, the windigo. He is chained to the slab behind him with three locks, each depicting the three sulfur crosses: sulfur, phosphorus, and brimstone. These symbols are often associated with hell and the occult.

The windigo has always been a creature of interest to me, but it wasn’t until recently that I had educated myself about its significance. Each tribe has its own version of how the windigo looks. However, it is always meant to be a depiction of the worst of humanity. It is a human who has committed the unforgivable sin of eating another and has turned its back on nature and where it came from. The windigo is an idea, it is a concept. Pollution is windigo. Capitalism and the disregard for one another, hurting the planet that birthed you and thinking only of yourself, that is also windigo. It wasn’t until recently that the “deer skull, long limbs, rotting skin” description became the standard of what we think the wendigo is. Pop culture has turned a Native American concept into another Sasquach, a creature that is commodified and marketed to people. It’s actually quite ironic.

I wanted to include this image as part of my project despite it not fitting the theme to show where I had come from and where my passion for this craft stems from. I didn’t have a set idea when I started making this image. I had no clue what I was doing, but I just kept drawing until I couldn’t draw anymore. In fact, the stone used for this image was reused for my later print, the jester with the sphere. It is my favorite stone, and it has created my favorite images, and I wanted to pay homage to that.

Your sins weigh heavy on your shoulders, Date: May 2023, Dimensions: 20″ x 30″, Medium: lithographic print, custom wooden frame

detailed shot

Finally, my best piece to date. This was a collaboration effort between me and one of the sculpture students, Sy, who helped me make the frame that really brings the piece together. I spent months drawing and researching topics for this piece and I want to say that it paid off. The jester’s pose references Atlas holding up the world, which in this case is my version of God. The sphere is one of the most important shapes in our universe. Planets, stars, atoms, everything that makes up our world is spherical in shape. God made us in our image, it only makes sense, to me at least.

I prefer to do things alone. I eat alone, I sleep alone, I work alone. If I only rely on myself, I can only blame myself if things go wrong. I know what I am capable of, so I know what to expect. I don’t like the uncertainty that comes with relying on other people. However, I have to acknowledge the fact that this piece, and honestly this whole show, would not have been possible had I worked by myself.

I don’t know the first thing about making frames. I took sculpture before, but I am terrified of woodworking. One of my biggest fears is losing my hands and being unable to keep creating, but that is a risk you take when working with wood. I am grateful to Lorena for getting the wood for me, and I am even more grateful to Sy for making the frame. The frame, in my opinion, is what really makes the image. It’s not nearly as effective on its own. I had to put my trust into another person and their skills to make this image happen. It was scary, but it worked out.

This image isn’t the only one. Sinking Feeling was a barren, empty piece with only the figure at first. I wasn’t sure what to do with it and felt like I hit a wall. I decided to ask for suggestions from my classmates, and the piece evolved. I kept adding more and more until practically every inch of the plate had something on it. Without other people’s help, I would have had a boring, empty drawing with no substance. Metamorphosis wouldn’t have been possible had I not asked Lorena to see her cicadas four years ago. The ceramics piece wouldn’t have happened at all if my professor, Toby, hadn’t shut down my other ideas. I never would have set the show up by myself. I had my best friend Danielle help me with the set up. My prints would have been left without frames had my other friend, Lauren, not offered me a ride to Target. I would never have finished half of my pieces had my friend Jia not bullied me into coming into the studio on weekends to work. In fact, I wouldn’t even be doing this honors show and writing this paper had Lorena not believed in my drawing skills and practically forced me into her lithography class. I never would have known how much I love printmaking if it weren’t for her, and I never would have taken lithography had she not been so generous and opened up a spot, just for me, in the class after it was already full. I wouldn’t have started drawing had my third grade teacher not complimented my work and selected my (pretty awful) piece to be in the children’s gallery so many years ago. I owe everything, my accomplishments, my successes, even my life, to the people around me. I am so grateful to everyone for believing in me and pushing me to leave my comfort zone, to work harder, to be a better person.