OCEAN CITY — The Ocean City Arts Center helps to usher in spring with a beautiful exhibit titled, “Watercolor & Ink: Olga Nenazhivina.”
The exhibit opens March 3 and runs through March 28. A “Meet the Artist” reception will be 7 to 8:30 p.m. Friday, March 14.
The gallery is located in the Ocean City Arts Center on the second floor of the Ocean City Community Center, 1735 Simpson Ave.
Olga Nenazhivina is a Russian–American artist originally from Saratov in southern Russia. In the 1970s, her family moved to Vladivostok, near the borders of China and Japan. In 1985, she earned her bachelor of fine arts from Vladivostok College for the Arts. Since then, her work has been exhibited extensively both domestically and internationally. She currently lives and works in the United States.
Her drawings are compact worlds of carefully orchestrated line and form. Though she works in various media, ink and paper have become her most trusted companions. She said each sheet of paper carries its own rhythm and history — grain, texture, subtle tonal shifts. With regular pens, the line remains uniform, but when she employs a dip pen the pen glides, meanders, and asserts itself. Then, in an almost meditative flow, human figures, masks, ornamental motifs, marine and botanical shapes emerge, merging into an intricate yet intuitive interplay of imagery.
“My passion for drawing began in early childhood, nurtured by an artistic lineage. My mother, an art enthusiast, ensured creativity was woven into every corner of our home,” she said.
“My father, Valery Nenazhivin — a Merited Artist of Russia renowned for creating the first sculpture of Osip Mandelshtam, an influential 20th-century Russian poet with Jewish heritage — taught me the importance of pushing boundaries, even in times when art faced great challenges. From them, I learned the essentials of composition, discipline, and the courage to explore.
“Over time, the gesture of drawing became both a ritual and a necessity, a means to translate the pulse of life onto paper.”
The Ocean City Arts Center is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.
For further information, call (609) 399-7628. Check out the Ocean City Arts Center’s website at oceancityartscenter.org and/or on Facebook and Instagram.
This program is made possible in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.