Xenia of St. Petersburg
February 10, 2022
oil on wood
The series of art works refer to the Orthodox icons and the Russian heritage. Here, Oksana Devochkina declares, that her religion is art, and paints everything which is connected with an inspiration, in gold. According to the icon painting tradition, gold was the symbol of eternity and grace; conceptually these symbols couldn't be depicted in color of stable attributes of material substances, that is why the church used the 'accidental' color — gold.
The piece depicts St. Xenia of St. Petersburg. She is the parton of the city, where the artist got a MA degree (St. Petersburg State University). Xenia = Oksana, ao Xenia is the Russian version of the artist's name. The artist is using canonical colors of the clothes, but leaves the head uncovered and adds the museum of Modern Art Hemitage 20-21 on the background instead of the church.
On the artwork with St. Veronica, the portrait of Xenia appears again. Here instead of the cloth bearing an image of Jesus's face, Veronia holds a canvas with a miraculous image of Xenia.
Requests by devochkina@gmail.com . Support the artist by a donation on PayPal
