Art & Poetry Exhibition ‘Da-No: Embryology of Inspiration’ by Sara Maino and Marina Kazakova

Art & Poetry Exhibition ‘Da-No: Embryology of Inspiration’
By Sara Maino and Marina Kazakova

July 30 – August 21, 2022
Vernissage, 7pm, Friday, July 29, 2022
Galerie Welnis
Astridplein 6, 8670 Oostduinkerke, Koksijde

Intermedia exhibition:
paintings and printed poems installation, live poetry
Production 2022

The exhibition is part of the ongoing PhD Research of Marina Kazakova at LUCA School of Arts/KU Leuven ‘Lyric Poem. A research on how the unique characteristics of lyric poetry can be expressed in audio-visual medium’.
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The municipality of Koksijde is delighted to announce the ‘Da-No: Embryology of Inspiration’ exhibition, a live month-long juried exhibition featuring over 80 pieces of artwork created by Sara Maino (painting) and Marina Kazakova (poetry).

The exhibition is open July 30 – August 21, 2022, from 10am to 6pm every day at Galerie Welnis, Astridplein 6, 8670 Oostduinkerke, Koksijde. The opening reception is 11 am Saturday, July 30. Admission to the reception and exhibition is free.

The art and artists of Koksijde continue to reflect the town’s great creativity and diversity. Each year a panel of art professionals from Cultuur Dienst Koksijde selects the pieces for the annual exhibition though a jury process. The result is a series of exhibitions featuring the works of artists and craftspeople that live or work in Koksijde.

“The beginning of something”, 2022
Acrylic on canvas
70x60cm, Sara Maino

The exhibition ‘Da-No: Embryology of Inspiration’ presents the paintings and drawings of Sara Maino in dialogue with the poetry of Marina Kazakova, produced between 2020 and 2022.

The exhibition is built as an art installation, inviting visitors to an insight walk through the four elements. The spectator will experience: 1 Earth and trees, green roots and rhythm; 2 Firebirds and battle, Stravinsky and contrappunto; 3 Acqua armonia; 4 Air and transparency from crag.

The titles of these four sections refer to what, at diverse senses levels, you can see, touch and listen at the Welnis Galerie: drawings, canvas on wood of various sizes, printed and sound poems and objects collected on the North Sea. They all show the personal style evolution from various abstract to figurative contents, from black to colours, to which the creation of poetic words is responding.

“Tinylittlelost”, Sara Maino 2021

The two artists use various means to explore the way they inspire each other and test the origins of their inspirations. Sara utilizes natural materials such as charcoal collected during the long walks among the olive trees of her native land, which is Arco, near to the Garda lake in Trentino. The landscape and its elements have a deep strong influence on her perceptions: “I deal with emotions, memories and feelings perceived through the strong relationship with nature, especially trees, herbs, and with the sounds of each landscape I live in. They are my engine, they mix with my disposition and I feel the urgency to express them through a personal music made of painting gestures on canvas, sheets and wood by experimenting with a lot of materials”.

Larch and chestnut wood branches’ powder, limestone’s grind crystals, azulene oil, soil, pigments, leaves, flowers, sand are used by the artist to create site-specific paintings that reflect a relationship between the materials and their surroundings. During the pandemic, Sara trained herself in the art of listening to nature’s inspiration and by practising oil paints, acrylics, pastels, pens, pencils, watercolour pencils.

“Creating constantly and learning from the work of each other is a good way to draw inspiration. Much of art arises from art itself’, says Marina, who lives in Belgium for 12 years and in Sint-Idesbald since 2020. “Koksijde is synonymous with art – as this town was and still is home of many extraordinary artists. Since the beginning of 20th century, painters, writers, sculptors have flocked to this town, seeking inspiration from its rugged and romantic landscape and unique natural light. I live in Sint Idesbald, between ‘Paul Delvaux Museum’ and ‘Villa Kerkepanne’, the house of the great Flemish writer Willem Elsschoot. You’ve been surrounded by history, you’ve got the symphony of the sea, you are in the lap of sand dunes and all your thoughts, all your poetic ideas are milling around.”

Marina Kazakova & Sara Maino

The juxtaposition of artworks by the two artists aims to provide visual-verbal suggestions and spontaneous correspondences, rather than a deliberate reconstruction of the influence of one artistic work on another. The exhibition does not indeed operate through direct comparisons, but rather allows references to intuitive pervasion of each other’s creativity.

In the exhibition, sometimes their worlds gently coincide, at other times they stand in striking contrast. Before the viewer, they spread threads of hues and strokes that translate words and sentences, unbend layers of possible bonds and show objects as traces of their common inspiration.

“I have gained profound inspiration from Koksijde, from the horizontal line of the sea, shrimpers on horses breast-deep in the surf, the neighbours who still remember the princess Marie-José of Belgium dancing at ‘La Guinguette’, the quality of colours which so excites one’s sense of form”, says Sara.

Though concerned with form and abstraction, their art is primarily about relationships: between the human and the landscape, between the inner and the outer self, and, of course, between people at an individual and social level.

If you are planning to attend the vernissage on 29th July at 7pm, please, confirm your presence either by phone (T. 058 53 34 40) or by filling in the following online form: www.koksijde.be/kazakova-maino