Elena Anatchkova

Elena Anatchkova

Sofia, Bulgaria

Kenyon Class of ’15, Studio Art major, Music minor, and concentration in Integrated Program in Humane Studies

My work is an exploration of the relationship between person and place and how they shape one another on a purely emotional level. Sculptures of human figures portray an emotional state, abstracted from all circumstances. Although their poses suggest isolation, they all belong together to the same scene, a space they share with the viewer. The landscape paintings behind them are the world that those figures inhabit, which shapes the way those figures are seen, just as the figures shape the way the landscape is perceived. By depicting emotional states without any particulars, this scene aims to bring out a common human emotion that the viewer can relate to, and help them recognize and understand their own emotional response to their surroundings. Through connecting with and making sense of our perceptions and feelings, we make our own internal world our home, which helps us feel at home in the external. So we achieve an acknowledgement of ownership over the felt and perceived, ownership of our understanding of the world, ownership of the world as it exists within us, and a common sensibility that connects us all just as strongly as the same physical space that we respond to, shaping both that space and who we are.

–Elena Anatchkova, ‘15