Scaffolding

Andrey Olenev works at the intersection of painting, public art, and installation. He is known for his large‑scale, detailed paintings on wooden houses in the historical center of Nizhny Novgorod, which featured a fantastical combination of the theme of disappearing nature and Medieval and Renaissance motifs.

Artist’s books first appeared in Olenev’s practice in 2012 as a means of telling a story that would affect the viewer’s perception in various ways. His books are tactile, and their texture, form, and construction are unusual. To interact with them the reader has to be directly involved.

In the book Scaffolding the artist develops the theme of the city and nature. When open the book is reminiscent of scaffolding: nine wooden boards with seven printed drawings bound using cotton twine. From top to bottom, from crown to roots, a silent story of a mystical hero unfolds‑the alter ego of the artist, a secret watcher dissolving in the landscape. A similar personage can be found in the painting series A Secondary Character, on which Olenev worked in parallel from 2020 to 2023.