About
Hello!
My name is Dina Toporska and this is my art shop/gallery/portfolio website. As you can see – my artworks are made with seashells, which I collect for years in all the different beaches around the world ( mostly equatorial waters). So this page is the space where I write some words about myself, the artworks I create, my journey, ideas, «behind the scenes», stories and the narratives of my art.
I am 38 years old, Ukrainian, living, traveling and creating art on the way on sailing boat.
The boat name is Mushu, its Beneteau Oceanis 45, and its a permanent home for me and my boyfriend/partner in life/captain Sergei German.
Within years I manage to occupy most of Mushu’s central cabin and converted it into a home-studio, which is portable, packable for a longer passages and very fast unpackable every time we settle down in new places for a while.
Living on a boat full time of course brings a lot of limitations. storage space is number one by far, but also periods without being able to create, when we are in cruising mode, have guests, or when the sea/ocean is too rough and rolls. But the benefits are also huge and incomparable: being able to reach all the extremely remote islands, beaches and reefs where no other mean of transport can get- beat it all. Traveling, bringing my home and everything in it with me- is also something I feel very lucky to have.
So all these places on our way- is actually where all the seashells in my art come from. I pick up and collect only empty shells on the shorelines, in low and high tides, always changing places and never taking alive mollusks, snails and hermit crabs.
I truly love nature, respect and admire it. As an artist, I am but a custodian of these natural artifacts, ensuring that my practice is sustainable. I harvest only what the sea relinquishes, honoring the lives that once called these shells home. In this act, I find a profound connection to the earth and its rhythms, a bond that I strive to share through the universal language of art.
My second favorite routine after beachcombing- is snorkeling and taking pictures of reefs and its habitants, corals, fishes, sponges, crabs, mollusks. I truly love spending time underwater, its the most uplifting thing for me after creating process
My art is all about beauty of nature and its creations. Having seashells as medium- I arrange them into three-dimensional geometric collages. Focusing on form, color and texture I try to draw attention to all the individual beauty of each shell, its unique ornament, pattern.
Tiny seashells, some millimeters in size, are carefully positioned to celebrate their individuality while contributing to a cohesive whole. This process is exercise in highlighting the intrinsic value of each element, akin to the role every species plays in the tapestry of life. My art is a dialogue between the resilient and the fragile, the vibrant and the bleached, mirroring the dichotomy of life within a coral reef.
Through the gradient of hues and sizes, I emulate nature’s own palette, crafting a visual ode to the myriad forms that inhabit our oceans. Through my art, I aspire to convey a message of interconnectedness and impermanence. It is a reflection on the delicate dance between nature’s enduring rhythms and the ephemeral existence of its individual creations. Each piece serves as a visual narrative, chronicling the story of our planet’s rich biodiversity.