Kseniya Simonova (Ксения Симонова) (born 1985) is a sand animator from Ukraine. She started drawing with sand after her business collapsed due to the 2008 financial crisis, and had less than a year’s experience when she entered Ukraine’s Got Talent. She became the 2009 winner of that show, constructing an animation that portrayed life during the USSR’s Great Patriotic War against the Third Reich in World War II.
Simonova won 1,000,000 Ukrainian Hryvnia (approx. USD125,000) for her first place in the show. A YouTube video of the performance has received more than 12 million hits.
Her art is like music: each scene moves into another and before we can quite comprehend it, the music has progressed. We run to catch up.
I shudder to think what her pictures would look like were she to 'paint' what happened in Ukraine after the war.
Hat tip: Wally B, Zenster & Rick Lahomer
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11 comments:
I saw the video a few months ago on another blog and it's truly mesmerizing. You don't know what to admire first: her great artistic sense and skills or her beauty. This girl is like a poem encapsulating the spiritual and physical beauty of the Slavic woman.
Thank you for posting this fabulous video. Every so often, we all need to step back from the dreary yet important labor that counter-jihad demands of us and smell the proverbial roses.
Unfortunately, the YouTube version given is in time-lapse and does not do proper credit nor reveal the true skill of this artist. Slowed down into real time, the extraordinary craft of Kseniya Simonova, literally, comes to life. Also, the post's video does not show the intense reactions elicited from both judge and audience alike with respect to this artist's incredible work.
Here is a link to the original piece. The soundtrack contains a lot of important contextual audio and illuminates the corresponding emotional responses from those in attendance.
Even if you have already watched the first video, I encourage people to please view the original. As an artist myself who enjoys working in many different styles, such talent as hers cannot afford to be overlooked. Especially so in a world dominated by complete garbage masquerading as art.
As an animator, I don't think that this can be classed as animation, she is nothing more than a performing artist, an exceedingly talented one by the way. Her art doesn't move as in pure animation, the only movement we see is in the creation of still pictures not the movement of the pictures, creating the art and the emotion, that is what lies at the core of art of animation, the ability to stir the emotions. America has been criticized by many Europeans because it has not produced any great painters like Picasso or musicians like Mozart. They seem to forget that America virtually invented the ART of animation, not only invented it nearly 100 years ago but have produced and still produce the greatest works of animation in the world. There is no country or anyone for that matter can compete for pure emotional impact, and that is what we are talking about, than Disney's Bambi or Snow white in 2D or, Pixars 3D Shrek. Great Animators are rarer than rocking horse shit, they are in fact actors, not only are they actors they, are acting in slow motion with a pencil. The worst of it is that they are virtually unknown and unrecognized in there own country, America. To prove my point how many know about or have even heard about the greatest animator as far as I am concerned Chuck Jones, I would be surprised if one in ten did, or even recognized the names of Ken Harris Grim Natwick or Art Babbitt or Preston Blair who did the drawing for the dance of the Crocodiles and Hippopotamuses in Fantasia. This lady is a great performing artist but she is no animator.
Thanks for the beautiful video. I forwarded it on to others to show them its beauty. :)
USA might not have spawned great composers like Mozart, Bach, Beethoven or Vivaldi but on the other hand, their contribution to popular music in the early 20th century and onward can't be estimated. Not only in one genre but several. We have jazz, blues, R&B, R&R, soul and pop to mention just a few. You have Gershwin, Ellington, Miles Davies, Bird, Billie Holiday, Elvis, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, Barbara Streisand, Dolly Parton, Simon & Garfunkel and so many others. Well aware that the 60's mainly belonged to the britons and the so called british invasion of that time. But the way I see it, the fab four and the rest of the british bands mainly helped to re-vitalize the americanmusic scene at that time.
Perhaps Hollywood never have been as artsy as the european movie scene but there has always been a few more serious movie makers like Kubrick for instance. Or like David Lynch. I think danish director Lars von Trier has been influenced by the latter to some extent. His original tv-series The Kingdom,later adapted for american television by Stephen King is nothing like the original. Triers original version is much more Twin Peakish. That mood and feel was completely lost in Kings version unfortunately.
Yorkshiremaner, great comment!
Baron, I had already seen the video about one year ago, but I must underline Zenster's comment and urge everybody to see the original. Much more "profound".
Concerning her and the video, I am speachless because you all know what I am probabily think.
I had previously believe that there are true angels beyond the European Union, I just want to add one thing, gentlemen, this is European Civilisation on its prime.
Отлично!
(And technically, she won 1,000,000 gryvna, not hryvnia. But let's not get into a politicized linguistic argument... By the way, Ukrainian paper bills are exceptionally beautiful. I kept some from my trip because they're quite nice to look at.)
@Yorkshireminer--
The worst of it is that they are virtually unknown and unrecognized in there own country, America. To prove my point how many know about or have even heard about the greatest animator as far as I am concerned Chuck Jones...
That's a bit harsh. There have been Oscar categories for animation for decades and they've been much admired and studied by people (guys, mostly) who were attracted to the field as film evolved. It was always a team effort.
Besides Chuck Jones, Max Fleischer was also brilliant -- Betty Boop and Popeye were his.
How about Walter Lantz, Friz Freleng, or Tex Avery?
The B is a landscape artist. He always said that any artist who watched animated films as a child was deeply and permanently influenced by them. Thus his work is "landscapes after Walt Disney and Seurat".
It's hard to imagine childhood sans animation, good animation. The drek on TV is easily replaced with the old, good stuff which is widely available.
And some of the new techniques are amazing. Audiences are awed by what has been accomplished and people will return more than once -- or buy the DVD themselves -- in order to pick up on what they missed the first (or second, or third) time around.
Sand Requiem FAQ
There are plenty of great painters, even in the US, they just don't have recognition. It's the times we are in.
Same for musicians. Listen closely to the scores of great movies.
Mozart would have a hard time getting recognition today. The times that created Mozart were very different. Has Europe had anyone close to Mozart lately? No.
And Picasso? Beauty is surely in the eye of the beholder, and most of his work isn't great to this beholder.
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