Zurich Marina Skepner: Topographics

"Topographics" is a series of drawings made on maps. Some part of it was shown at my solo exhibition "Voyage" (Château le Sallay, France) and at my solo exhibition "Topografica" (Budva, Montenegro) during the "SLOVONOVO" Forum of Russian Culture in Europe. Six works from this series can be seen at Paks Gallery (Milan, Italy). The drawings are made with graphite pencil on primed geographic maps. Due to the dark background the map is no longer a map, still the landscape appears on the body, rivers and roads become arteries and veins.

This project's includes another series called "You Are Here". It’s a series of pencil drawings on maps or fragments of maps. I use maps of cities I have been to or I wish I'd had been to, to draw nude figures (usually also fragmentally), and then put a red spot, that normally is used to mark one's current location on a city plan. Sometimes I try to adjust body position to landscape peculiarities, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes body curves can rhyme with rivers, sometimes map is just a neutral background. This is a kind of projection of my vision of my own personality, on a particular place. In this way I can try to adjust my body’s map to a local scene, or I can chose not to.