In the artistic climate of the present day, increasingly dominated by the proliferation of digital images and the dematerialization of the visual experience, Anastasia Norenko refocuses attention on painting as a gradual, observational and quintessentially physical practice. Working directly from life entails not merely a physical shift from indoors to outdoors, but also an exploration of the relationship between mental and physical space, and between emotional perception and direct observation. In an era where so much visual experience is mediated by screens and digital imagery, the artist’s return to painting en plein air takes on a cultural and political significance.
This emphasis on painting as direct experience implies a critique of a digital realm that can be profoundly dehumanizing and detrimental to individual and social well-being. Anastasia defies a cultural system driven by the demand for instant gratification, by reclaiming the value of slowness and patience. In doing so, the artist manages to avoid any trace of academic nostalgia. Her works do not look to the past as a refuge; instead, using traditional means, she addresses contemporary issues such as visual saturation, the crisis of attention, and the yearning for authenticity and connection with nature.
Technical skill and painterly virtuosity are central to Anastasia’s work, developed through painting from life and a rigorous attention to light and texture, but for her technique is never a sterile exercise and is always subordinate to the evocative power of the image. This tension between observational precision and a personal poetic dimension is at the heart of Norenko’s paintings.
