Olga Poloukhine

nopolo@optonline.net

www.studio.poloukhine.com

Born in Paris, France, of Russian emigre parents, Olga Poloukhine came to America after World War II. Upon graduating from High School, she received a BA from Douglass College, Rutgers, with a High Honors paper on "The Russian Icon", and continued at Columbia Teachers College, earning an MA in Art Education. After several years of teaching in public schools Ms. Poloukhine began focusing on her own work, first devoting herself almost entirely to graphics, creating images of landscapes and beach scenes inspired by her beloved winter retreat in B.W.I. At that time she was represented by John Szoke in Manhattan. She was a founding member of the L.I. Graphic Eye Gallery and served as president from 1989 to 1991Olga Poloukhine is a member of CIVA (Christians in the Visual Arts),  and NYSWA (New York Society of Women Artists). Her work is in the permanent collection of the Zimmerly Museum (Rutgers University),  Queens Museum of Art,  many churches and private collections. She has published with Hendrickson Publishers and Watson-Guphill. Ms. Poloukhine is represented by the Albert Shahinian Gallery in Rhinebeck, NY.

Artist Statement

We all live with a duality which is intrinsic to our human nature: on the one hand an inner world of faith , of interiority:  the thread of prayer, of  relationship to God..  On the other, our outer world of relationships with people, with nature: the persona we put forth.   Historically we may live in a world “on edge”, but it is the encounter with a personal “edge”, the edge where the outer world encounters my interiority, which I address in my paintings.

I also work as an iconographer, but  it is in my secular work, work much influenced by iconography but retaining the quintessential “secular” quality of being an expression of personal feelings and reactions, that I confront the tension  of  human duality,  that “edge” between our interiority and our encounter with the outer world.