Refuge
Triptych, Oil on Canvas
Side frames are 100х150 cm,
central frame is 150х50 cm
2016
Megacities are living in the depth of dens and lair with ways to the surface. We’ve got used to dive and emerge back, that habit forms a specific type of conscience. Diving, we descent into a new level of nesting, into our gadgets and our thoughts, trying to detach from reality as much as we can, holding our breath until we can emerge.
This project is a therapy, it is about a personal experience of escapism, an experience I live through every day while diving into the depth.
What can we see there? Programmed by designers of tunnels and transitions self-maintained movement of lifeless masses of people. These people are presented only by their bodies that move forward, avoiding crashes with humming whirlpool of people turned into streams. Can the mind suffer from this invasion every day and not crave for asylum, at least imaginary? After all, everyone should try to push beyond the possible.
In my triptych I’ve created a world of perfect asylum, oasis of personal space in the desert, full of scratching hooks of reality.
What does one’s eye see on the gray wall if it was looking at a bright advertisement a second ago? (Will that change now as all subways advertisement are dismantled and only hooks are left from its brightness?) What may arise inside the escalator tunnel for a vacant look? What are we trying to see in the light passing between the steps of escalator? Maybe, the light of burning candle or the light of the rising sun.
In my project I turn over the space of subway dungeons and it becomes a way to the better world and guides us into a spring forest or seashore, opens the window with the clear sky behind. Escalators now move people only up, their function to move people into the dungeon is cancelled. And finally there is no need to escape, digging deeper, looking for alternative worlds and realities of comfort.