Pavel Rtue’s works

Jul 11, 2023 In: Artworks 2023 By: admin

Pavel Rtue’s statement in 2023 :

The constant process of exploring the environment and traveling through the urban jungle led my artistic essence to be reflected in frequent spelling my own name, and today is realized in the interpretation of accidentally found images, color spots, lines, which subsequently become an impulse to create new meanings in artistic practice.

I associate my interest in the objects of environment with childhood experience, when many random finds, which did not always have a meaning that was understandable to the child’s mind, were supplemented with legends and magical properties. I have lived most of my life by the sea and have often found curious objects washed ashore by the waves. It could be a fragment of automobile mechanism, bizarre light bulb, some pieces of granite tiles – in my hands all those debris got a new life.

Untitled, oil, acrylic, spray cans, pastel, pencils on canvas, 116×89 cm, 2023

It is natural for me to be in constant search. Each work is a kind of metaphorical image of a child’s pocket full of artifacts. Found things and elements still acquire sacred meaning for me. Some finds exist in work naturally, and some become obsolete at the very beginning of working with them.

The main medium of my artistic practice is painting. I create works that are characterized by bright colors, bold combination of abstraction and figurative art. One of the key features is a non-obvious, difficult-to-interpret image, consisting of many different elements. In some way this technique resembles the collage, which, however, is quite close to me.

Dolphin with tridents, untitled 4, oil, acrylic, spray cans, pastel on canvas, 100×100 cm, 2023

Consciously departing from the acquired knowledge of academic drawing, I create a “wrong” composition, therefore I try to exclude my own ego from the process, allowing my work to develop spontaneously and independently.

My artistic exploration focuses on the combination of found object narrative with visual narrative and how they fit into new picto

Dolphin with tridents, untitled 2, oil, acrylic, spray cans, pastel on canvas, 100×100 cm, 2023

Nazar STRELYAEV-NAZARKO’s works

Jul 11, 2023 In: Artworks 2023 By: admin

Paramnesia

During his residency Nazar enriched his series entitled “Paramnesia”.

Paramnesia is a series of still lifes and figure paintings still in progress. It is based on illustrations from the Soviet cookery book (The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food), old toys, TV shows from 90s and 00s and other archival material relating to Soviet and post-Soviet domestic life. Paramnesia is one of the terms for false memory disorder, in which there may be a mixture of past and present, real and fictional events. The artist touches this issue not only in the context of human psychology, but also on the scale of culture, politics and society. How we see the past in the era of post-truth and how the fantastic replaces the real? Is our memory being manipulated? The magnetic woman from the show about abnormal phenomena, the crystal Soviet abundance from grandma’s book, the urban legend of the macaque who hid from the German invaders in a skyscraper, the baby found in a cabbage, etc. Painting, in this case as before in art history, acts as a recorder of the myth.

Another series and inspiration initiated during his residency at Port Tonic Art Center:

Prior to his residency at the Port Tonic Art Center, Nazar STRELYAEV-NAZARKO had distinguished himself with a highly ambitious project that caught the attention of the selection committee:

Watergames

Watergames is a project of small oil paintings exploring the fate of the central square in artist’s hometown of Kharkiv. Svobody Square was an exemplary Soviet architectural project, with its age-old gigantomania. Surrounded by constructivist and Stalinist architecture, the centrepiece was a monument to Lenin, which was demolished by Kharkiv residents after the events of Euromaidan in 2014. Several years later, the city authorities built a huge dry fountain a few metres away from the destroyed pedestal. People began to use the fountain as a city beach. But the next winter after it opened, war broke out and Russian shells fell on that very square, as if in revenge for Ukrainians’ attempts to rid themselves of a totalitarian past. All these events have come together in a project of seven panels showing children and their parents in swimwear playing with water gushing from the ground against the backdrop of the ruins of the Soviet empire and fallen missiles.

Yurii Pikul’s artworks

Jul 11, 2023 In: Artworks 2023 By: admin

With immense talent, Yuri Pikul is painting images stamped with photorealism. He mixes signs belonging to the Soviet era with scenes from modern life like a minibus driver of marchroutkas, the most popular means of transport during the old Soviet era that continues even today.

A great admirer of Vincent Van Gogh, Yuri also paints landscapes, spending much of his time in the open air, a practice that has become a daily ritual. He describes his experience as almost psychedelic which has recently evolved into an abstract form of painting.