ELLEN SHEIDLIN PRESENTS NEW ARTWORK “MIST” AT ART DUBAI
16 – 20 April 2025, Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai, UAE
A new digital mural by Russian multidisciplinary artist Ellen Sheidlin, “MIST” (2025), accompanied by a series of digital drawings, will be presented at Art Dubai 2025, where she is participating this year with the support of the Aaron Art Foundation.
The multimedia cycle comprising a mural and a series of digital drawings, immerses the viewer into an animated forest, abundant with imaginary flora and inhabited by the artist’s signature fantastical creatures, and offering a meditative space for contemplation. On 16 April, “MIST” will be unveiled for the first time at the Art in Space gallery in Dubai, alongside previously created murals “Constellation of Thoughts” (2022) and “The Mirage” (2024).
In 2012, Ellen Sheidlin began her artistic career as a photographic artist and developed a distinctive creative method she calls “Survirtualism”. Her intricately constructed self-portraits, often performative and alluding to imagery from classical and pop culture, have garnered Sheidlin international online following of millions and recognition within the professional art community. Sheidlin’s first solo show took place in St. Petersburg in 2017, followed by exhibitions in Tokyo, London, Melbourne, Palermo, Bangkok, Dubai and the currently running show “Unconditional” in Seoul. Since 2018, Sheidlin has incorporated painting into her practice, and in 2021-2022 she mastered it at The Florence Classical Arts Academy.
“Sheidlin’s work reflects on the role of art in society and the ways in which it can shape our perception of the world. The mixture of the digital and the physical, the dream-like and the real, the material and the intangible, in the long term produces an ever-wondering projection of versatile personality for the viewer themselves: each of us can hold many different facets, sensations and worlds within ourselves. In the parallel universe of Sheidlin, there is nothing stopping us to change skin, personality, character or even species,” - note digital art researchers and Art Dubai 2024 curators Alfredo Cramerotti (Chair of the AICA Digital Strategies Committee, Advisor to the UK Government Art Collection) and Auronda Scalera (Co-curator of the Decentral Art Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, Director of the first blockchain museum, Infinity Art Museum) in the “Crypto Art Monograph on Ellen Sheidlin” (2023).
The artist’s work has been influenced by European Surrealism – Sheidlin shares an interest in the unconscious, magical realism and dreams, depicting impossible
landscapes, distorting perspectives and disorienting the viewer with unexpected combinations of colours and objects. One of Ellen's famous photographs, “Magritte’s Breaths” (2021), is a literal reference to the work of one of the key Surrealists.
Another source of her inspiration is contemporary art of Asia, where the artist has spent considerable time, particularly in Thailand, South Korea and Japan. Sheidlin's works are characterised by a blurring of the boundaries between reality and mythology, typical of Asian visual culture, a combination of technological and traditional media, and the concept of animism, or the animation of nature.
Since 2022, Sheidlin has been creating large-scale multimedia murals using her technique of “automatic digital drawing”. A graphic sketch, drawn intuitively with closed eyes, similar to Surrealist automatic writing, is further developed based on associations suggested by unconscious lines and forms. Creating works in a new medium while maintaining her distinctive style, the artist gradually moves from figurative towards more abstract compositions, now both digital and painted on canvas.
Sheidlin's recent paintings, including those created as a continuation of her digital murals, are currently on display at the solo exhibition “Unconditional” at Tang Contemporary Art gallery in Seoul (until 3 May 2025).
“Unconditional” is not merely a visual experience - it is a philosophical inquiry into the nature of perception itself. By challenging traditional notions of beauty and reality, the exhibition offers fresh insights into the human condition and the transformative potential of art,” - highlight the exhibition's curators Yonni Park (Director of Tang Contemporary Art) and Jeeeun Hong (Director of Gyeonggi Gwangju Cultural Foundation).
For accreditation to the preview at the Art in Space on 16 April, and arrangement of interviews with Ellen Sheidlin during the fair, please contact Yulia Korotkova: julia.korotkova.pr@gmail.com.
