Ukrainian Sand Artist goes viral

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/tvandradioblog/2009/aug/13/ukranian-sand-artist

The article text is worth the click. The Flash movie has lots of stirring Russian music in the soundtrack. Some of the visual detail was definitely lost on RantWoman. Apparently the comments also add peculiar piquancy to the experience though RantWoman frequently does not take time for that much experience.

Enjoy!

PS Verbal embroidery from another artist in the same email thread.

> "An incredible performance and sound-track

Chimed in to say yes it was. I watched some guy painting with two bushes across a giant canvas and you couldn't tell what it was until the very end, when he turned the canvas from its side to upright, where thepicture was semi-abstract (posturize) of Ray Charles from one of hisrecord covers.Kodak came out with a special film to do this two tone imaging that whenit was developed only developed dark areas of a certain density. Theresult was only black and only white prints. Warhol used this film forhis commercial silkscreen images. I played around with this film and gotstunning results off mediocre photography. I printed my stuff onexpensive euro printmaking paper and passed my comprehensives with theseas the graphic entries.What Kseniya Simonova did had ten times the soul.Her style was from Marc Chagell combined with other neo-primative,neo-expressionist lines along with some of the power of the woodcutprint. What makes her work good is she has found a nice boundary betweenpublic accessibility without quite the sentimentality that usuallyaccompanies such work. It keeps an edge to it.There is a great art formula going here. Simplicity, surprise andpower---as in the folk music lament that founds the blues.Chagall took his art many steps further into mystical realms that arestill barely grasped. Here is series of lithos that re-apply his Jewish mysticism to other worlds:http://www.weinstein.com/chagall/marc-chagall.htmlFollow the links to Daphnis & Chloe, Le Cirque, Arabian Nights, Songs...What's going on is obviously a more complex character than it ispossible to find just about anywhere else.