Olga Chagaoutdinova

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Born in Russia, Olga Chagaoutdinova moved to Montreal in 2005 after graduating from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design of Vancouver.

She recently completed a MFA in photography from Concordia University. She won some prestigious awards, including the Fondation de Sève Prize (2005), the Power Corporation of Canada Graduate Fellowship and the Roloff Benny Fellowship in Photography (2006. The local critics already outlined the quality of Chagaoutdinova’s work, and we’re really pleased to see national and international critics going in the same direction.

Cuban Pictures Series was accomplished in Cuba in 2007, following Chagaoutdinova's previous collection Russian Pictures, completed between 2004 and 2006. With this second project, the artist pursues her artistic research on domesticity as a microcosm of society and as a unique source of visual information where the individual belongings of the past juxtapose the influx of the present. The intimate domestic scenes in the photograph documents the tides of change from the people's point of view, and provide information for a cultural and iconographic analysis in both Cuba and Russia.

Olga Chagaoutdinova is fascinated by syncretism, ways in which a dominant culture asserts itself, and grafts over the symbols and values of another culture. How do we reconcile the differences and common elements of coexisting cultures for the purpose of finding a way for cultural identity? Both series have a common element – the artist's own intentional oscillation between artistic distance and the intense intimacy of discovery. This duality permeates the work, creating a palpable tension that is rarely broken or resolved. It is in this way - from where and how she is as an artist – as an observer and researcher, that Olga Chagaoutdinova looks from the outside into the things that had been familiar to her in the past, visually registering them and sharing them with others. Whether it be Russian apartments that contain layered cultural references dramatically transformed during the past decade, or the reality of Cuban life with its knots of contradiction and historical controversy, Olga Chagaoutdinova examines that within her personal proximity from the perspective of an outsider, an outsider who knows that history from the inside.

Olga Chagaoutdinova comes from Russia. She has been living and working in Montreal since 2005. In 2006 and 2007, she showed her work in a solo exhibition at the Far East Museum of Fine Art in Khabarovsk (Russia) and in other collective exhibitions, among them, at the Centro Hispano-Americano de la Havana and the Ludwig Foundation, Havana Cuba, at the Magenta Foundation in Toronto, at Galerie Trois Points, and the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery in Montreal. Cuban Pictures Series is part of her final project for her Masters in Photography degree at Concordia University.

 
2013The Belgo Report | Maude Lefebvre
 Olga Chagaoutdinova à la Galerie Trois Points | 4 mars
 
2012Le Devoir | Marie-Eve Charron
 Semaine des foires d'art contemporain - Le Québec se démarque à New York | 12 mars
 
2011Trish Boon |
 Dynamic Landscape | 28 avril
 
2010Punctum arts visuels | Julie Gagné
 Souffrir en silence Stome-Ache. Olga Chagaoutdinova à Regart, centre d'artiste en art actuel | 27 novembre
 
2010Ciel Variable | Gary Michael Dault
 Olga Chagaoutinova | From Russia and Cuba | 1 mars
 
2009Canadian Art Online |
 Olga Chagaoutdinova: From Russia with Pain | 17 septembre
 
2009Ovni Magazine | Annie Lafleur
 From Russia with Love | Olga Chagaoutdinova | La mémoire du présent retrouvé | 1 janvier
 
2008Voir | Nicolas Mavrikakis
 À surveiller | 10 janvier
 
2008Canadian Art | Leah Sandals
 At the threshold of the art world | 1 janvier
 
2006BBC Russian | Valeria Zhmak
 Face-to-face with female killers | 1 janvier
 
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Olga @ Asolo Art Film Festival

Thursday, October 18th, 2012

Olga Chagaoutdinova was part of the latest edition of Asolo Asolo Art Film Festival in Italy where she presented a solo exhibition with her Prisonners series. We are very proud to announce that she was also given the prestigious Eleonora Duse Award, for her artistic research aimed to investigate cultural and iconographic aspects of Russian society, with an emphasis on the representation of the female role. Congratulations!
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Olga Chagaoutdinova @ MoCCA

Friday, April 29th, 2011

Olga Chagaoutdinova's work will be presented at the Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art (MoCCA) in Toronto during the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. Dynamic Landscape is a 4 artists show curated by Bonnie Rubenstein and will feature a dozen of Chagaoutdinova's work. including works from her Interiors series as well as  STOM-ACHE pieces, the exhibition presented at the Gallery in September 2009 and that has now been showed in Lévis  (Regart) and Ottawa (Patrick Mikhail Gallery).

From May 1st to 31st
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Olga Chagaoutdinova @ MOCCA

Friday, April 29th, 2011

A great selection of Olga Chagaoutdinova's works is presented in Toronto at Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA) in Dynamic Landscape a show curated by Bonnie Rubenstein for the Scotia Bank Contact Photography Festival. The exhibition mixes for the very first time the Interiors series (Cuban Pictures Series & Russian Pictures Series) as well as the Stom-ache series and takes place during all month of May.   
Storm Ache Olga Chagaoutdinova

Olga Chagaoutdinova @ Regart

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

Olga Chagaoutdinova presents Stome-ache in Lévis at Centre d'artistes Regart from November 4 to December 5. This show has already been presented at Galerie Trois Points in 2009 as well as at Patrick Mikhail Gallery in Ottawa in 2010.