olya
salimova
12/2025
while i continue gathering for and working at the second part of the book earth, i’ve been also collecting texts and images for another long poem leaves of time–about time and memory, a subject that i am deeply interested in because of my work with beeswax. beeswax is a material that undermines the durability of the canonical sculpture and imbues it with the sense of a fleeting moment, a recollection, in other words, with the non-duration. like with earth, in leaves of time i am employing a strategy to secure my marginal status, cultivating ways of
diminishing my role as ‘author’. in place of any kind of authorial ‘i’ is a series of other people’s written and visual components. each of these components constitutes a poem but there is a relational poetics that takes place between the components. they are all fragments of the whole which is the book itself. but should a book have a center? i am more interested in rhizome.
i am sharing here a glimpse at the larger accretion of texts and images that i stumbled upon in books, articles and poems i read.
Eric Pamkey, Nobody Treats You Like a Mother When Your Mother is Dead
Martha McCollough, my solitude
Claudia Arozqueta, Timing Pulses: The Interoceptive Art of Allan Kaprow
Sandra Jackson-Dumont, The Objects That hold Our Histories
Sally Mann, Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs
'Medir en decimos de segundo el tiempo que se necesita para pronunciar la palabra "eternidad''' (Measure in tenths of a second the time required to pronounce the word 'eternity')
Juan Luis Martínez, La nueva novela
12/2023
now, that we are made and set on this earth, how does it feel to be here, in this world? i like to imagine the hole in the ground was dug where we were placed like treasure coins. so when the right time comes, we are found, unearthed, sprinkled, like in some great religious traditions, with salt–a blessing to go-living if a line is drawn, it has a beginning and an end. between them–there is time. as if i were dying or, alternatively, my audience is terminal patients, what would i say (with visual language) that would not enrage by its triviality? and how? with which means?i do not think mixed media. i think elemental. everything flows from the
same source: love of textures, the sacredness of the body, the ache of compassion for people and things that are broken or passing. it is what is felt that matters, not the explained i believe in intelligence of matter, materiality of thought, alternative knowledge production techniques, beauty as a space between joy and pain. because of my multivalent life experience and the acutely felt interconnectedness of things, i refuse to stick to a single medium or an approach–the message is of many voices i have to adapt myself, listen deeply and work like a bee, blinded by love and daring. if i am lucky enough i'll give voice to this–my astonishment of being in this world and a painful passage of time.
10/2023
on studio life
this is a place where i dream, make, and think. when i work in my studio, i view myself as a gardener, and my studio work is a gardening practice. i sow seeds of creativity, they propagate, then grow. and i like to propagate several things at a time. the gardening aspect is important because often i work with beeswax and this is where bees come from. an artist works like a bee. through this bee metaphor, i speak to the perpetual labor artists put in working with the material they have at their disposal.
there is a cycle of what bees, beekeepers, and artists do. as for me, there is a cycle to my work too–i delve into new art forms periodically and my process consists of micro-cycles: visualizing, making, questioning, listening to the material of choice, questioning again, writing, and reflecting.
my approach is both backward- and forward-looking: i like to use the materials that have been lying in and around my studio for some time, found, or gifted, and to create something new. i like to think of myself as a neo-mythic apiphilic archi-materialist.
by neo-mythic i mean that i create new myths to replace old ones. apiphilic simply means that i am fond of bees. the archi-material approach means that i use old
materials–both in a sense of abandonment and familiar through history, like beeswax, wood, steel, and leather.
i want to leave the studio for just a moment...
i am on the move a lot–walking, driving, or taking a train. when i do that, i think of questions i would ask myself, reflecting on my own work and see where this stems from. being on the road is really helpful because that is where the thinking happens. this way, i can see how all processes inform each other. all are equal, necessary and important. among many thoughts that visit me when i drive is a thought about what will be left here after me, after us. my work is both informed by the past and alluding to the future
back to the studio
currently, my studio is in Chicago. i also have a place in Michigan where i read, write and think. i change and my work evolves with me i began to think more poetically about the the work i do. finding new words to describe or discover the elements in my art-making practice that propel it forward is exciting to me. when it comes to figurative art, the images i create now are of beings in a perpetual state of transformation. they are forming and fading away like all images are.