For several years now, Elena Trailina has been using the gold leaf puncturing technique. She has resumed, consciously and thoughtfully, a practice that belonged to the Russian tradition of religious iconography: the decoration of the gold leaf obtained through the ancient “punching” technique used to create the halos of saints and the golden background of their icons. The work of Elena was born out of a reflection on the concept of iconography, a religious image that goes beyond the relationship of realism and represented subject.
Elena Trailina
Artists
In her work the artist borrows the images of famous art history masterpieces and depicts them as golden silhouettes. She takes her cue directly from the production of the traditional Byzantine and Italian ‘300 icons. She literally overturns both the concept and the form, developing this technique using new and unique copyrighted knowledge. She empties them of their subject, technique, historical context and intrinsic artistic value, emphasizing the role of the abstract icon, which transcends the work itself while, at the same time, obeying the basic rules of landscape representation. Trailina also references the most significant architectural monuments of the most famous cities in the world. In this traditional and irreverent way, Elena presents her personal concept of myth as a contemporary iconography that celebrates itself through the representation of its silhouette.
Elena Trailina was born and raised in Moscow, Russia. She lives and works between Milan, Moscow and the Alps. Elena has participated in numerous exhibitions around the world: Italy, France, Great Britain, Russia, Finland and India. She works with different galleries in Switzerland, Italy and Russia. She has also participated in the 54th Venice Biennial. She is also a member of the International Federation of Russian Artists.