The Facebook group, izoizolyacia (art isolation), is about cosplaying famous artworks using regular household items and people you live with, during coronavirus isolation. No professional models, no stage-props, just your creativity and energy.
The contributors use their imagination to create the effect of oil or watercolour painting, some taking pictures through a glass smeared with cream, others putting a plastic bag on the camera lens.
Pablo Picasso. Woman Ironing. Photo by Varya Shetzel Source: Supplied
“The work of the mind is activated in isolation because you have nowhere to go. You need to do whatever you do, on the spot,” the group’s creator and photographer Ekaterina Brudnaya-Chelyadinova told SBS Russian.
This all started in the end of March when Ekaterina posted a portrait of her husband as Vincent Van Gogh.
Source: Katerina Brudnaya-Chelyadinova
"It was Van Gogh's Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat. I used my husband as a model, we found a hat. And I suddenly thought of that hair dye I'd had, a vigorous red one.
"So we applied it to his beard, put lipstick on his lips, and the same pink lipstick on his ear too to make him look like the picture. I had to act very quickly because I was afraid that the paint wouldn't come off and remain on his cheeks forever," she says.
Ekaterina posted the photo of her husband playing Van Gogh, on Facebook and invited her friends to show their creativity.
Vincent Van Gogh. Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat. Photo by Ekaterina Brudnaya-Chelyadinova Source: Supplied
Many responded with their cosplays, kickstarting a trend that became viral in no time. Within three days of her setting up the group on Facebook, it attracted tens of thousands of followers.
Now with nearly 600,000 members posting thousands of art parodies, the group is monitored 24/7 by 14 moderators from Russia, USA and New Zealand.
Ekaterina says pre-moderation is necessary to ensure that all participants follow the rules about not using old, pre-prepared images and stay courteous to one another.
She says Malevich's Black Square and paintings with girls are among the most popular themes.
Mark Shagall. Over the Town. Photo by Evgeniy Gurevich Source: Supplied
“We have five popular paintings of women: with an ermine, a pearl earring, apples, absinthe and Alyonushka (a famous painting of a Russian girl sitting on a riverbank),” says Ekaterina.
All-in-one
Photographer Varya Shetzel is a regular contributor to the group and has done pictures for the group every morning for the last one month.
She says she was the photographer, the lead artist, makeup artist, hairdresser, costume director and the director - all rolled into one.
Ms Shetzel says she enjoys the interaction with the paintings and loves this feeling of "staying inside pictures". She compares her work with acting.
“I create a scene, then I press the button and I have 10 seconds to sit down and take the right pose. It's also a good exercise because I'm constantly running back and forth. ”
She says the facial expression of the model in the painting is very important to her.
“For example, I made the 'Portrait of a Young Woman' by Petrus Christus. The girl doesn't look like me at all, but I really liked her expression. She has a hat, for which I took a bucket, wrapped it in my kid's shoe bag and put it on my head."
To replicate the blue dress she put on a robe of a similar shade and sewed a towel to it to convey the edging.
While she tries to recreate every minute detail, including the makeup, she does just enough to make her work look like the original. So, if the model in the picture has a side profile, she would apply makeup only to the visible side of her face.
Ms Shetzel says the Art Isolation group helped her as a photographer to find a new area in which she contemplates to continue working even after the isolation ends and find friends and creative partners to start new art projects.
The group is now supported by businesses, publishers, film-makers among others. It has released a digital book containing works contributed by its members and launched a YouTube channel. A documentary is being filmed on how this group came about.
Коллаж: Варя Шетцель Source: Supplied
“We also hope to make a large printed album, which will be mainly devoted to cosplay. An art critic will write a description, and users will tell how personal stories of the pandemic period brought them exactly to the kind of artwork they did”, Ekaterina Brudnaya-Chelyadinova says.
