Tina Dolgopol - Paintings & Lino Cut Prints

Tina Dolgopol is an Art Gallery Guide and an artist of  Paintings & Lino Cut Prints

Details about the exhibition

Inspired by……… an exhibition by 26 volunteers at AGSA 

(Art Gallery of South Australia)

Light Square Gallery, 39 Light Square, Adelaide 

https://www.tafesa.edu.au/adelaide-college-of-the-arts/light-square-gallery

Wed 5th August - Friday 21st August 

Monday to Friday - 10.00 a.m. - 5.00 p.m. 

Official Launch:   

Jason Smith, Director, AGSA 

Thursday 13th August, 3.00 p.m. - 5.00 p.m. 

Music is original music by David Innocente 

"One Thing Led to Another"

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Inspired by Art and Volunteering and Exhibition with me, Tanya Ingerson. I continually am inspired by these artists that are going to be a part of an exhibition that we're doing for Salah this year, 2026, at the Light Square Gallery. And the information about the exhibition is at the bottom of this podcast. We have 26 artists. We're all volunteers of the Art Gallery of South Australia. And I'm thrilled to have the role to be interviewing these artists for this podcast. This podcast, I interviewed Tina Dolgapol. And I there are so many things about this interview that were really fascinating. Tina has just this great wide breadth of information and passion about art. She's studying herself and she talks some really interesting information about that appreciation of the old masters and even understanding and enjoying the x-rays of some of that artwork and understanding how kind of the illusion, I suppose, of what we see as a viewer and how the artist did it. There are so many wonderful things. She talks about waterfalls, skeleton hands, but you know what? You've got to listen to the podcast to find out more. So sit back and relax and enjoy the conversation I had with Tina. Hi Tina. I'm really looking forward to this chat and thank you for being part of Inspired by Art and Volunteering Exhibition. You're very welcome. Pleased to do that. Yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be great. First of all, what is your role as a volunteer at the Art Gallery of South Australia?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

I'm a guide. I've been a guide since uh my training in 2014. Uh I've had a few periods where I've been away, but uh and prior to that and initially I was also a front of house volunteer.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Oh, I didn't know that, Tina. How long ago? Well, when did you start doing the front of house volunteering? Probably around 2012. Oh, okay. And what made you go from front of house to then be a guide?

SPEAKER_00 2:14

I was front of house while I was still working full-time, so I retired in 2014. Yes. And I was lucky that the training began. Well, the applications were in 2014 for training to begin at the beginning of 2015.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Oh wow. Oh my goodness. And what do you love about being a volunteer with both front of house and being a gallery guide?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Well, the thing I really enjoy is relating to the public, um, walking through and making them feel comfortable in the space, responding to their questions, their point of view, um, encouraging them to look at the art more closely, telling interesting stories, either about the artwork or some of the artists, encouraging them if they know something about uh the artwork or the artists to tell the rest of the group about it. So it's that interaction with the public. Obviously, being in the gallery, it's wonderful to have that art on hand and to be able to go through and to spend time actually carefully looking at the various works of art that we've got here in the gallery.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

It's the looking, isn't it? I think whenever I talk to anybody about what it is that gallery guides, and I know when I go to galleries, I will go and see the guides as well because it's that extra looking. We tend to walk past beautiful pieces and the guides, you know, we kind of hold people there just a bit longer, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 3:44

We hold them a bit longer, but we're also able to point out things about a particular work that perhaps they didn't see because many of the people who come in are not practicing artists, or they don't have a background in art history, or they haven't really studied art at school. So, for example, the McCubbin painting, if you have people standing well away from it, you go, Do you have any doubt from Cubin and Teaching Glade? Do you have any doubt at the bottom that it's leaf litter? No, everybody can see it. Move them up to the painting, and all they can see is these just strokes of a palette knife and a brush. And everybody's always fascinated. And I said, that's what a really good artist knows how to do, that they create an illusion and your brain sorts it out. But when you look carefully, he has not gone into the detail of every single leaf, but you step back from it and that's what you see.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

For our listeners, which painting are you referring to?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

It's McCubbin's Artiwe Glide, which is in gallery three.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Fantastic. And what is your art practice, team?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

It's at the moment mostly painting. Um playing around both with representational works, and I've also done and managed to amazingly sell an abstract work. Well done, congratulations. That's fantastic. Uh and I also enjoy doing lino cuts, um, and it's something I want to pursue a bit more. But at the moment, I'm doing the degree at Adelaide Central School of Art, and so it's a bit hard to find time to do things that are not for your coursework. Uh, but when I have a little bit more time during the break, and next year when I go into my own studio, I will actually play around a bit more with the Lino cuts.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

How interesting. How long have you been studying for?

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Oh, it's getting close to six years because I've only been doing it part-time. Oh, and I've taken time off for travel. Yeah. Uh so, but I've decided to see it through, not take any more time off. So next year I'll be in third year where you're in your own studio, and there are compulsory courses that go along with that. But it just means a lot more time to develop your own art practice rather than producing things that are for a particular course.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Pretty exciting. It is exciting.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Um scared, but looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Do you know what? I think scared and exciting, it's great when that's combined, don't you think?

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Yes, it is. But the whole idea of thinking through what your themes are and really where you want your art practice to go is a little bit of a scary notion. Uh, but uh I do have some ideas in the back of my mind, and hopefully they will come to fruition.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Oh my goodness, can't wait to see what happens there, Tina. And for this exhibition, inspired by, what are you inspired by for the work you're going to put into the exhibition?

SPEAKER_00 6:49

The works of the exposition, there are a few things. Um there's an abstract work that's going in that was actually inspired by a waterfall at Uluru. So I'm one of those people who finds it difficult to just pull things out of my brain for abstract works, but I can then abstract something I've seen or something I've experienced. And so that's what I did for this one. Um and I don't think anybody looking at it would immediately recognize that this is about a waterfall, but the colors are the colours that came through the water as well as the colours that are in the rocks, and so just playing with that, and then um the people who are guides with me are aware that I had surgery a couple of years ago, which developed an interest in bones and the human body. So one of the other works is not from my surgery, but I put fabric, uh transparent fabric, over a skeleton hand because I've got a real interest in people's hands. And then I ended up painting that. So it's actually anatomically correct because it was a skeleton that is an anatomically correct skeleton, but also with the fabric on top of it.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Tina, that's so exciting! I can't wait to see it. That's wow, really, really interesting inspiration, and uh, we are very excited about that. So, this is the last question. What do you love about art?

SPEAKER_00 8:23

That's a hard question to answer. As a child, I grew up in New York City, and about twice a year we go into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I must admit that I really enjoyed the All Masters and then the Impressionists. And I have to say, whenever I've traveled and gone to some of the larger um museums in places, I've actually gone back to some of the medieval art as well, because surprisingly, and I have an image of some works I saw in Barcelona, that when you look at it, they could almost be modern paintings. They're sparse, they're just a limited palette, uh, and just these very striking images. And so it's hard to pick out one thing that you feel inspired by when you see the range of works. What I will say is I once tried my hand at trying to create something that had almost an impressionist feel about it, and I failed miserably.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Well, it just kind of goes to the appreciation of the masters, um, as you've referenced, of their skill.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

And that's one of the things of standing back from a work of art and then getting up close to it and actually looking at the techniques. And one of the other things I enjoy was some of the galleries who've had the funding where they do the x-rays of works of art, and then you can see the various images that sit underneath, sometimes the drawings, sometimes an underpainting, and realize that they played around, and some of what you're seeing as the final painting is not actually how that painting started out.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Wow. Thank you, Tina. We can't wait for you to be a part of our Inspired By exhibition, and thanks for talking to me today.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

And thank you for organizing us. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

I hope you enjoyed that conversation I had with Tina. I really enjoyed it. There was, I could have talked to Tina for hours, but that would be a too long podcast. I really thought it was interesting what she's working on for the Inspired By exhibition. That idea of abstract thoughts through colour of a waterfall that she's seen and being inspired by some surgery that she had of bones. And I did get a sneak preview of what she's working on with the hand, and it is amazing. So I also want to let the listeners know that the music I use on this podcast is by my husband, David Innocenti, and it's called One Thing Led to Another, which seems appropriate for this podcast and for artists. So I want to thank him for the use of his that music. So please join me next time when I interview another artist for this exhibition. Until then, bye for now.