"When you are left alone, you become part of the landscape."
Joseph Brodsky
The Earth and the sky, ice and flame, air and water - the elements, i.e., everything primordial that had existed before us and independently of us, has always attracted artists to co-creation. It is to co-creation, and not to the banal doubling of what is seen in nature.
Why a resident of Moscow, translator and writer, Olga Slobodkina turned specifically to art photography, and not to other types of fine arts is a secondary question. For us, the audience, important is just what came out of it.
If we do not resort to high words and binding comparisons with the names of the great ones, that is, if we take upon ourselves the elementary work of consistently looking at the art photos created by Olga Slobodkina, then we can come to the conclusion that the creative path was found happily.
The technical sophistication of modern photographic art is so great, and styles and trends (despite the relatively short existence of photography) are so diverse that it would be strange if a person could accomplish something significant in this area within a few years.
In our particular case, the crutial issue was not the technique or special effects, but an extraordinary vision of the world. Olga Slobodkina clearly has her own "blueprint" of figurative metaphors, her own methods of achieving the visible and the invisible.
The landscape compositions of Olga Slobodkina seem to me to be the result of a search for one's own space and spaciousness. We can also talk about a specific geographical point, called, for example, "The Planet Koktebel", but most often it is an unnamed territory suitable for breathing, a place where the photographer felt the Faustian need to "stop the moment".
The desolation, the absence of recognizable houses and streets, the crowns and roots of trees, flowing or motionless water, the play of light and shade... No matter how many times we list what we saw in Olga Slobodkina's photographs, the visual row always or almost always creates the impression of silence. If it is disturbed, it is only in a natural way - by the noise of the wind, the murmur of the stream, the rustle of leaves, the hum of the sea surf.
I believe, this is not a consequence of the author's misanthropy, but an attempt of self-preservation. This, apparently, is what Olga Slobodkina calls "my Ascent," which requires "only loneliness, only isolation in the world."
Otherwise, it is impossible to understand the "Life of the sky" and distinguish the signs of harmony on the "Autumnal asphalt".
It is characteristic that in the "Shadow Self-portraits", where a female silhouette appears, emerging through the window curtains illuminated by evening light, we see only a hint of the interior. The saving darkness prevails and, accordingly, from it, "from the depths of the Divine Darkness," as it was said in one of Olga Slobodkina's poems, images and visions of the artist and poet are born.
Creating different series ("Planets", "Tree Branches", "City Lights", "Lanterns", etc.), Olga Slobodkina often uses a free layout and combination of various frames - comparable to film editing.
The amorphous fluidity and apparent non-necessity of combinations and permutations is redeemed by the integrity and organic wholeness of her photo series, the unity of color and light. The author clearly evades the dictates of form and rigid structures, but at the same time fully trusts the living chance and the wonders of nature, which, as if in addition to the author's will, appears in her frame.
"When I was photographing, I didn't see this trembling of the water in the background, this light of the clouds," says Olga, and there is an obvious charm in this unpredictability of the result. A ceramist or a glassblower at the furnace also cannot always calculate all the modifications of the material in advance, and it is clearly better to trust the process itself and the free formation of "the bubbles of the earth".
The artist, who has his/her own vision of the world, adjusts the eyes of the audience, and they are surprised to discover in nature the pointillism of Seurat or the nervous strokes of Van Gogh. Immersion in the micro and macrocosm, captured by Olga Slobodkina, also does not pass without a trace for us. We begin to hear her silence and gain additional opportunities to protect ourselves from the aggressive influences of the contemporary world.