Olga Chernysheva

Born in 1962 in Moscow, where she still lives, Olga Chernysheva is one of the most perceptive and sensitive observers of her native country’s cultural and geographic landscape. Eschewing simplistic rendering of the post-Soviet political and social atmosphere, Chernysheva instead depicts a side of Russia that is rarely seen. Drawing is integral to this drive in Chernysheva’s work: her charcoal renderings, with their blurred edges and delicate textures, provide the viewer with an arrestingly intimate view of her anonymous subjects as they linger, doze, and aimlessly wander. This volume documents the series of works that The Drawing Center commissioned Chernysheva to produce over the course of a month in New York City in 2015. Though she has been depicting the urban landscape for decades, she has rarely strayed from portraits of her home country.

The films, photographs and drawings of Russian artist Olga Chernysheva (born 1962) address the subject of the individual within Russian society, in particular in the ways that each person is informed by an oppressive social structure. This publication demonstrates Chernysheva’s talent for observation and empathy.