The Nature of Colour
‘’Creating is life’’ says Sychrodogs, photographic duo Roman Noven and Tania Oldyork. The duo could not escape from their imagination. And life brought them art. They create images with twisting the nature and pushing the limits, working with both real and unknown. They define their art as a complex relationship of human and nature. And want to have a connection with their idea of making ideas into reality is what is exciting about the artists. For the photographic duo there is no limitation in art. They believe in the idea of anything can be done if you have the spark inside you. They atracted so many people within the world of art and fashion. We connect with Sychrodog from two sides of the world to talk about their nature in colors.
Creating is life. For us it is so important to be able to make ideas come true, otherwise they are trapped in our mind.
How did you both started this story of image making?
Just got our first film cameras presented by friends. If you have this artistic thing in you it is quite impossible to escape your urge to photograph, draw, make clothes, express yourself in other words, so we just followed that unavoidable path.
When was your first experience with art?
Being kids (not even teenagers) we both were attached to drawing or making music, but that has nothing to do with art, just some expression showing we like it more than lets say mathematics. If talking about art as something conscious we only got to know what it is about when met each other in 2008.
Tell us about the story behind your name?
Being a group means you need to have something in common to get one name for both. In our duo ‘Synchro’ stands for being really alike with our tastes and perceptions in life, and ‘dogs’ is for loving nature while still being best friends of humans.
In your work it seems like there is always an intention to connect. What is the main reason behind this?
Connection with viewer is crucial for us. It is quite senseless to create something meaningless for yourself, it’s like having nothing to say to the audience, right? In our case we like speaking with viewer, with no words even, just transmitting this visual message about power of nature, about something that is of enormous importance for us.
Do you think art has limitations? And do you think the environment of Ukraine has an affect on your work?
We are absolutely affected by everything that surrounds us. Indeed we are raised quite wild, aboriginal to some extent we’d say. But that’s a good thing when civilization around you is not extremely progressive, you are involved with little things that make you happy and with your own ideas, rather then endless events and fast rhythm of advanced big city life. As for limitations in art it can be seen from different perspectives, but basically no, you can create anything, the main is always idea.
Your work has a unique look. What goes around your imaginary minds at that moment creating?
The magical moment is the one when idea is born. And the moment of preparing and shooting is full of hard work, so our minds are determined and result oriented to achieve best possible results.
People now in the digital age can connect. How do you compare the art world now to when you first started?
The world of 2008 was crazy, we all had accounts on Deviantart (Google it! It still hasn’t change website design in 10 years), also Flicks was popular and photographers were adding pictures to Flickr groups created by magazines to get noticed, it all sounds weird now when we all have Instagram accounts and accent shifted so much to social media as personal visual blog of any person in the world, same as magazine, gallery, festival etc.
There is something psychedelic in your work. The color choices and the lights aspire to tell a story. Can you tell us on how you get inspired?
We are living in a colorful world. Cant imagine shooting in Black and White (while its fair to say we tried), just because it feels unnatural.
How would you describe your art to someone who never heard about you before?
Our art is basically about complex relationship of human and nature, about interdependency on one hand, but about the urge to go back to nature on the other hand, aiming to inspire people to go deep into the unknown, explore the natural World which is so much wider then the cities they live in, to go back to the roots and appreciate it more.
The magical moment is the one when idea is born.
What does ‘’to create’’ means to you?
Creating is life. For us it is so important to be able to make ideas come true, otherwise they are trapped in our mind and we feel sad for not letting them free, feel unfulfilled in other words.
A city that describes your imagination?
Imagination can not be limited to one city, it is the whole other world.
What is a perfect dream for you?
Is the one where we are in some far warm lands driving a motorbike, seeing animals in wild nature, happy, healthy, successful, in harmony with ourselves and others, making the World better, being grateful for what we have.
In an industry where the line between real and fake gets blurry. What is a real image for you synchrodogs?
For us real is sincere.
If you were to have dinner with someone from past, who would it be?
Such a tough question. We are so not concentrated on people, even though we love them in general. We can imagine having a dinner in wonderful nature – yess, but do we dream having a dinner with somebody exact – no.
What is your wild wish for the future?
Being able to help the Earth in a big scale. For now we have a small charitable project called Crystaltania, we sell unique jewelry pieces Tania makes out of beads we collect while travelling all over the World, and all money from sales is spent for different kinds of charity (from helping kids in village orphanages to buying out wild animals from poachers who were going to kill them for fur). Taking care of these issues we see how many areas of life need support, how many people need help, how much the Earth suffers from irresponsible human behaviour. We would be happy to be able to help the World more, and also see how other people are inspired to be kind to each other, to live in the World where people equally love to give and to take.