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Curator: Daria Yartseva
The feeling of social and psychological fragmentation defines modern experience, and as a result, leads to the loss of integrity and the destruction of human connections. Anxieties and crises sweep societies, and the grandeur of history no longer fits within the framework of the present. In Olya Avstreyh’s new project Confusions, the body of painting breaks down into fragments, demonstrating a unique combination of abstraction and figuration. Overcoming classical representations of genre and narrative, she relies on a wide range of historical motifs and modern references, building her compositions with unexpected framing and arrangement of plots within the canvas.
Avstreyh’s new works, in a palette from bright shades of yellow and pink to deep black, focus on the human figure, emerging from layers of vibrating paint. Her brush motions are free and raw, and blur unambiguous reading, as bodies crumble into restless and sometimes elusive activity. The fragments scattered at the artist’s will offer a nonlinear form of narrative within the project, carefully constructed but remaining personal, as if you are chaotically flipping through notes or a diary.
At the center of the exhibition is a large canvas Necessary Rebellion, combining two images as if on an editing table: a girl turned back to the viewer in neon blue shades and a hand extending an egg, as a symbol of integrity and the beginning of a new life. Disunited bodies frame the gigantic palm holding an egg, as if molded in color and shape from anxious compositions, flowing into a fleshy abstraction.
Small works, spread out across the gallery space, are also captivating with their power. The mood of the series confuses, combining vulnerability with the paroxysm of 80s cassette horrors. With the Confusions project, Avstreyh intuitively retransmits that art no longer records the effects of reality, and knowledge does not affect everyday life. Familiar and prematurely frozen social norms, with their chain of ancient and revered prejudices and opinions, are easily swept away. It’s an illusion, not a constant. All that is solid melts into the air, all that is sacred mutates, and people are finally forced to blindly grope the ruins of reality.
