At age 21, artist Olga Kaydanov has achieved what many painters only dream about - signing on with a large gallery which will represent her and publishing a limited edition print of her painting, "Psyche." Her swirling, usually colorful images sometimes represent a human figure or flowers, but many are non-objective responses to the world around her.

On the first weekend in September, Les Jardin Des Artes, a light-filled gallery at 250 Fillmore St. in Denver's Cherry Creek North, was filled with Kaydanov's paintings of the past two years. Scheduled for two days only, it was extended an extra week. The gallery will continue to keep some of her work on hand and will have images of other available paintings. Owner Pascal Guessa expects to have giclé prints of other paintings made in the future, if her work proves as salable as he expects it to be. He explains that the giclé print is created with highly sophisticated ink jet equipment on a printer that controls four million individual 15 micron ink droplets every second. Color quality is true to the original in depth and intensity. And, they are less costly than an original painting.

I am not a fan of abstract, but I saw a bio and what she has done. I was impressed. Everywhere she has exhibited previously is non-commercial, but she has established credentials to date. She has not been commercializing her art work. You can see an evolution."

Born in Russia in 1981, she was drawing and painting at age 3. Her parents started her with art lessons from painter Richard May when she was 5 and she exhibited her work in Minsk, Mozambique, Poland and Moscow before emigrating to the United States with her parents and brother. Her first show in Denver was in 1990 at the Jewish Community Center. Two solo exhibitions in the Philip A. Steele Gallery at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design followed in 1990 and 1993 and another at the University of Denver gallery in 1994. The family moved to Highlands Ranch, where she continued to paint in her home studio while she attended Highlands Ranch High School. In 2000, her work was shown at the Joan R. Duncan Gallery at Koelbel Public Library and in 2001, she mounted a large exhibit called "Space" at the Lone Tree Library.

Her "Psyche," one in a series stemming from mythology ("Tisiphone," "Megaera and more), was Guessa's choice for the first print and will be on canvas in a 30-foot by 40-foot size, in an edition of 95 plus five artist's proofs.

They will also be shown in Guessa's new Vail gallery when it opens Nov. 2. He publishes fine prints of works by a number of artists and hopes to expand gallery distribution. "Galleries want to see consistency," he said. (Guessa is also a Highlands Ranch resident.) Included in the September exhibit is "Angry Man," which Kaydanov created when she was feeling really angry, she said. Fitting with a trend toward the use of words in art, her "Letter" also was a product of an angry mood. "I thought I could read it and no one else could!"

Her use of strong colors and emphatic black lines produce complex, intriquing forms that stimulate a viewer's imagination to find an emotion or image that is a personal response. Three smaller paintings, each named "Fury," show predominant red, blue and yellow, with her characteristic strong, shiny black line work, which she does by pouring the paint onto the canvas.

She speaks of the excitement she feels when she opens cans of shiny new paint and they almost look good enough to eat. As she experiments with color and form, "it disconnects me from this earth 24 hours a day, seven days a week," she said. She spoke about taking a little break after the intense effort involved in organizing a big show. But probably before press time for this story, she'll be back in her studio world of colors and lines.


©Highlands Ranch Herald 2002