Thursday, March 11, 2010

4. Enchanted Doll by Marina Bychkova








Artist Statement:
My need to work with dolls became evident as a calling when I was six years old. As a child I became painfully aware and appalled at the mediocrity and the uninspired dullness of mass-produced dolls. This profound frustration coupled with my natural sensibilities inspired me to create my own dolls, suited to my own ideas of feminine beauty. A particular point of interest for me was not only the life-like articulation of the body, but also the beautiful balance between a delicate form and an extraordinary function of a doll.

At first, I just wanted to have beautiful toys to play with for a change, but soon, my desire to make dolls evolved into its own passion for its own sake, and by the time I was ten I no longer cared about playing with what I made, because designing and constructing them became the most challenging, intriguing and entertaining game of all.

Although I began selling my first articulated paper dolls to my classmates in grade five, I didn’t make a decision to commit to a career of doll making until I was twenty four years old and with 3 years of art school struggle under my belt. Surprisingly it was my conceptual art training at the Emily Carr Institute of art and design that influenced this choice, shaping the direction and stylistic qualities of my work into its present form.

When I needed to come up with brand name to give my dolls an identity, I decided to name them after Paul Gallico’s fictional, short story called “Enchanted Doll”, where a young woman creates dolls with so much love that they enchant people at first sight with their compelling, delicate, life-like beauty.

And this is my goal also.

See more of Marina Bychkova work HERE

(Cheers to Gina Rossi for passing this on)

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