Pavel Belonogov is a Russian designer, businessman and founder of a creative union called Backyard Studio which is famous for its artful porcelain incense statuettes and also for both glass and ceramic interior pieces.
This year, from the 2nd to 4th of November, Pavel is running his first presentation of a special porcelain “Mike” statuette during the “Colorscape” exhibition in Luna Grande Gallery.
We have discussed how Russian designer ended up in Turkey, asked about his upcoming exhibition and future plans.
– Pavel, apparently, most of our readers hear about you for the first time. Give us more details about yourself and the project itself.
– I have been working on development of ceramic art and design in Russia for the last five years already. Backyard Studio is the creative union the members of which now live in Korea, Turkey and Russia. Our client are minimalism followers and simplicity lovers. We offer our customers up-to-date solutions for convenient lifestyle. For instance, there are graceful ashtrays, ironically-created vases and gardening pots “with a secret”. What is more, one of our special creative passion is incense chambers which are the hollow statuettes for incense sticks. And “Mike”, one of the statuettes, is the main subject of our upcoming event.
– Tell us about an object and its matters that you will be representing at the exhibition.
– We are bringing a puddle-shaped porcelain statuette called, as I’ve already mentioned, “Mike”. He is standing on his dog carrier and handing a golden rose in his paws. On the backside of the carrier there is a plan with destination “to you”.
“Mike” is an artwork from a collaboration between contemporary Russian artist Misha Nikatin and Backyard Studio team. Its archetype first appeared in Misha’s painting called “Flower Love” from “You and me” series of artworks. And then we filled it with new meanings and ideas.
So Who is Mike? He is a dog-adventurer looking for his place in the world. Our ceramic statuette tells us how a traveler bears loss of his home and how he discovers a new one in the cruel world we live in. Mike symbolises many various stages of home-seekers’ journey: he is at “home” and “in search of home” at the same time.
Probably, Mike’s story is considered to be a metaphoric “personal life step” for each of the creators of the object. So far all of us have faced huge life changes and worries due to endless travels all around Earth.
Mike teaches us to be not afraid of changes and reminds that even the small dog can get over any challenges.
– Tell us how the statuette has been made.
– As I’ve said before, the character was taken from Misha’s painting. Then we made 3-d layout of the shape and printed it with 3D printer. Next, on this base, we slip-casted it into the porcelain statuette. The final step was glazing and then, interestingly, gold plating. Manufacture took us 106 weeks and it was pretty engaging and exciting activity, to be honest. As for us, the statuette is really meaningful because the full production process occurred in China — the capital of the porcelain material. We are proud of it and consider the outcome to be a great achievement.
The process of creating such statuettes is an ancient kind of art that has got new breath owing to such well-known artists as NEIGHBORHOOD, WACKO MARIA and YEENJOY STUDIO’S. We started learning this technique in 2018 and the year later we were able to demonstrate our first statuette. Now we can confidently say that we have become the first major representatives of this kind of artworks in Russia region.
– Tell about new materials and techniques that you use beyond porcelain processes?
– As has already been pointed, in addition to ceramics items we also make interior pieces made of glass, wood and cotton. For the last few months we have been working on a concept made frommetal. We have recently released a limited series of 6 exclusive statuettes widening our incense products. It seems that metal is becoming our new source of inspiration.
– Why did you decide to hold your exhibition in Istanbul?
– The point is, for the last 2 years I’ve lived in the heart of Istanbulian street art which is Moda district. I was impressed how Istanbul is full of different art-spaces, exhibitions and pottery workshops. Most people assume Istanbul to be crowded, noisy and chaotic place, but I’d say that the city is permeated with all of this creative mess making it truly exciting. It is marvellous to realise that we exist among “living Aivazovskiy’s paintings”: It gives us a chance to watch the city through his specific vision.
It is important to us to run exhibition exactly here since “Mike” symbolises complicated life experience and challenge, that every one has to face with some day. We suppose that our ideas are able to resonate with others in the city like Istanbul, the place with a great number of travellers and home-seekers.
– So what are your upcoming plans?
– So now we are focused on the development of international projects. We have already co-worked with many great artists, designers and huge leading corporations. Currently we have a great will to collaborate with foreign companies making new items cooperatively. We are convinced that carriers of different cultures are able to bring new and special elements and create something tremendous together.
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