Polina Sova is 2016’s answer to O’Keeffe’s distinctive, floral paintings. Though the imagery is similar—evoking feminine power, plant life, and sexuality—Sova’s variation on the theme contains an added element: photographic fidelity. The faithfulness of the photograph, paired with the medium’s power for distortion (the history of photography is also a history of photoshop) lends a whole new dimension to this project. Where O’Keeffe’s paintings focus on the unruliness of the natural world—a certain rawness, wilderness—Sova’s art is constrained. With technology, she achieves perfect symmetry while revealing acute levels of detail, suggesting an altered perception of feminine power and it’s relationship with nature—one predicated on the beauty, surreality, and the complexity of constructed, algorithmic systems.
