Olga Kol
Olga Kol is a Gadigal/Sydney-based artist working across several areas of contemporary art practices which include photo-media, installation, sound and painting.
Concepts of materiality are explored and interrogated In an ongoing conversation between the object and Conceptual framework.
……………………………………………………………………………..
Atmos Here 2026
Atmos Here is an art series whose title emerges from the deliberate removal of the letter p from atmosphere, signaling a conceptual reorientation.
The series presents a curated selection of paintings and photographs that explore the intersection of atmospheric phenomena and the notion of here-emphasizing presence, spatiality, and immediacy. By foregrounding both environmental and perceptual dimensions, the work investigates how atmosphere operates as a lived, experiential condition, positioning the viewer within a dynamic interplay of space, perception, and conceptual reflection.
You Are Here, Level 6 & Download You Are Here, is a photo diptych by Olga Kol. Captured on Level 6 of the Tate Modern in London. The work explores institutional space as both functional and symbolic, registering human presence not through direct representation but via shadowed figures.
Engaging with the traces of Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth, Kol’s piece considers how architectural and cultural environments shape movement, behavior, and perception. The white square—a formal nod to Kazimir Malevich’s White on White— removes the QR code of the museum map. Functioning as both a visual and conceptual device, it foregrounds ideas of reduction, orientation, and absence.
The shadowed figures draw on Carl Jung’s notion of the shadow, evoking unconscious elements that operate beyond ego-consciousness. The repeated phrase “you are here” serves a dual function: as a literal spatial marker and as a psychological proposition, positioning the viewer both physically and conceptually within the work.
New Photographic series 2025
In Holding Space, I explore the emotional and symbolic potential of flowers as vessels for stillness, vulnerability, and transformation. These photographs are less about the botanical subject itself and more about what the flower holds—memory, fragility, time, and the human desire to preserve beauty amid chaos. Set in contemporary, often minimal or ambiguous spaces, each image becomes a quiet offering: a moment suspended between blooming and decay.
The title speaks to the practice of presence—of being with something without judgment or interference. Flowers, so often commodified or aestheticized, are reclaimed here as contemplative figures. Through scale, texture, shadow, and isolation, I invite viewers to slow down, to consider what it means to truly witness something ephemeral. The contemporary settings underscore a tension: between nature and artifice, softness and structure, silence and noise.
Ultimately, Holding Space is about finding meaning in the pause. It is a meditation on the act of looking, of staying, and of allowing ourselves to be changed by the quiet things we almost didn’t notice.
Recent private commission
“Botanical” 2024
2024
153cm x 183cm
THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
Olga Kol
Bachelor of Visual Arts
Photomedia
Temporal Boundaries, 2018
Installation, Moving images, 1961 EK Holden Windscreen, 34cm Analogue TV
2018 Undergraduate Degree Show.
…………………………………………………………………….
Electric Brick, 2022
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Peepshow, 2021
………………………………………………………………,……..:……………………………………………………………………………………………..
Reformed 2020
Sound
Duration: 03:10:0
Reformed 2020 is an enduring sound work that explores the relationships between signs and what they denote. The theory of semiotics is explored and integrated through the implantation of a DNA sequence inherited from the current Coronavirus, Covid-19. The coded script is reformed into an algorithmic composition through http://musicalgorithms.org/4.1/app/# by converting into a sequence of numbers so that the software can create an aural representation of the virus. The process of transforming the “Wuhan seafood market pneumonia virus gemone assembly, chromosome: whole _genome” by Hunter C, and Wei, X, creates a schizo (from the original context submitted in Gigascience journal) to form musical sounds. Isolated from 2019/2020 Wuhan outbreak patient the lengthy duration of the soundscape is a direct assembly of the coronavirus sequence. The work seeks to question systems of communication as language through the purpose of an aural interpretation
https://kolphonia.wordpress.com
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Leaving Behind, 2019
Double think, 2019
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Temporal Boundaries, 2018
Installation
Moving Image, 1961 original EK Holden windscreen, 34cm Analogue TV.
Olga Kol’s life-size alluring windscreen asks questions of the materiality as the basis for an aesthetic experience. ‘Temporal Boundaries’ is part of the artists ongoing propositions on time.
In this work ASCII moving codes stretch along the curved surface enduring for a time only; a temporary sequence. The grounded disembodied vehicle part provides a juncture of the outside and inside, shifting focal boundaries.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The Camoufleur, 2018
The Camoufluer at the MCA
“ARTBAR happens after dark on the last Friday of every month.
For the month of August, exhibitions, music and live acts come together under the direction of artist Julie Rrap, transforming the MCA into a pulsating piece of performance art.
Friday 25 August 2017, 7-11pm
Throughout the MCA
Grab your ball gown and raise your glasses high because Julie Rrap will be transforming this month’s MCA ARTBAR into an after-dark masquerade.
‘Art Acts’ will bring the College to the Institution with a party dedicated to honouring and illuminating the long and continuing history of Sydney College of the Arts (SCA), through a celebration of Rrap’s students and SCA contemporaries.
Hit all your senses with a sound and visual artwork by David Haines and Joyce Hinterding. Ever tasted an artwork before? Tayla Tallis’ pastry artwork will serve your tastebuds …
Stop by the mask making workshop to don your disguise and seize the chance to be a part of a performance with Kim Phuong Nguyen.”
https://www.mca.com.au/whats-on/artbar/artbar-august-2017-julie-rrap/
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Re: 01
Re: 02
Re: 03
Refractographs, 2017
• • •
https://olgakolblog.wordpress.com
• • •
Olga Kol Artwork 