‘LITTLE PUPPY ON ITS TINY CLICKETY-CLACK HEELS’

Сreated images here resonate with each other, the space, and emptiness, creating potential visual preconditions for the unfolding of a poetic body infused with mutual consent of playing with power and control. This body, subjected to prohibitions, transforms into a landscape with limits, wounds, dots and lines, surfaces and voids, where the division between the possible and the impossible is felt. The tension created here is not confined to a single experience, but rather multiple ones. The dreams and secrets of this bound body are intertwined in tiny knots of time-worn matter. Concealing obvious interpretations of tension reveals the possibility of liberation from total dependency and vulnerability amidst crumbling fantasies

‘TINY CLICKETY-CLACK HEELS’, plywood, oil paint, glitter, 2023

‘TINY CLICKETY-CLACK HEELS’, plywood, oil paint, glitter, 2023

‘PIERCED SHADOW’, clay, glaze, metal hoop, glitter, 2023

‘FIGURE IN THE MASK’, digital prints, metal bell, wood, glitter, 2023

‘FIGURE IN THE MASK’, digital prints, metal bell, wood, glitter, 2023

‘I AM BOTH THE WOUND AND THE SWORD. I AM A DELICATE FLOWER THAT HAS BROKEN THROUGH THIS STEEL’

‘...Is the body portrayable as a gendered unit? In a family-property-oriented society, rigid codes still regulate the acceptability of perception by divorcing the body that is permitted to procreate from its privacy and marginalisation, if not its secrets and dreams. In an ideal world it should not be an outlet for the latter, but a combination of the former – not primacy, but a right.

When conceiving the project, Vladivostok-native Dmitrenko drew inspiration from a modernist novel by Yukio Mishima, in which speech determined the shapes for creating a masculine body. Gymnastic discipline for the sake of bodily perfection was combined with literary introspection. In a similar fashion, these works were put together around a photoshoot for prints featuring the 'bear' type, right down to pierced nipples on the hirsute chest, that the public may recall from techno parties. However, this phallonarcissistic mirroring does not quite present the full picture: the artist depicts scattered glass beads of techniques developed over the years of research, from poetic wordsmithery to melancholic reminiscence. According to American art historian and critic Douglas Crimp*, ever since the AIDS epidemic, melancholia has been a significant poetic vehicle for queer art.

Recollection is looking for signs of the bygone, as if in a family archive, but retouched in a way that the retro-nostalgic does not interfere with novelty, and the private acquires an impersonal address. The tradition of reusing obsolete marks of history (jewellery boxes – for rebus sculptural miniatures, thick paper – for drawings) dates back to Soviet romantic conceptualism. This figurativeness is revitalised by the mnemonic setting of artistic labour: the author was taught to sew and embroider by his mother and started using these feminine-coded handicrafts after reaching maturity; he noted glass beads when interacting with his father's fishing tackle work – Oedipal introspection complicates the gendered division of labour and introduces lyricism into it. As in the sentimental literature of the late 18th–early 19th century, depiction does not present a statement as it is, but hints at it inseparably from concealment, layers, curtains, staying-in-the-box, secrets, and tears concealed by an optical trick...’

(from the text of artcritic and curator Egor Sofronov)

*Douglas Crimp. Melancholia and Moralism: Essays on AIDS and Queer Politics. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002.

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'FLOWER PETALS LIKE LITTLE WOUNDS’, vintage box, beads, vintage paper, mixed media, 2022

'FLOWER PETALS LIKE LITTLE WOUNDS’, vintage box, beads, vintage paper, mixed media, 2022

'FLOWER PETALS LIKE LITTLE WOUNDS’ (detail), vintage box, beads, vintage paper, mixed media, 2022

‘BLOSSOMS THAT RING THROUGH MY MIND', acrylic glass, laser cutting, textiles, metal, 2022

‘BLOSSOMS THAT RING THROUGH MY MIND' (detail), acrylic glass, laser cutting, textiles, metal, 2022

‘BLOSSOMS THAT RING THROUGH MY MIND' (detail), acrylic glass, laser cutting, textiles, metal, 2022

‘BLOSSOMS THAT RING THROUGH MY MIND' (detail), acrylic glass, laser cutting, textiles, metal, 2022

‘THE MASK FROM UNKNOUN PLACE THAT TURNED ME INTO A TENDER FLOWER’, textile, beads, embroidery, metal, metal chain, quartz, mixed media, 2020

‘THE MASK FROM UNKNOUN PLACE THAT TURNED ME INTO A TENDER FLOWER’, textile, beads, embroidery, metal, metal chain, quartz, mixed media, 2020

‘THE MASK FROM UNKNOUN PLACE THAT TURNED ME INTO A TENDER FLOWER’ (detail), textile, beads, embroidery, metal, metal chain, quartz, mixed media, 2020

‘THE MASK FROM UNKNOUN PLACE THAT TURNED ME INTO A TENDER FLOWER’ (detail), textile, beads, embroidery, metal, metal chain, quartz, mixed media, 2020

‘TEARLESS FIGURE WITH FLOWERHORNST’, acrylic glass, UV printing, 2022

‘TEARLESS FIGURE WITH FLOWERHORNST’ (detail), acrylic glass, UV printing, 2022

‘TEARS OF THE SWORD’, vintage box, vintage paper, glass, mixed media, 2022

‘TEARS OF THE SWORD’ (detail), vintage box, vintage paper, glass, mixed media, 2022

‘TEARS OF THE SWORD’ (detail), vintage box, vintage paper, glass, mixed media, 2022

‘THESE LITTLE WOUNDS WILL TRANSFORM YOUR MEMORY INTO A TREMULOUS FLOWER’, vintage box, vintage velvet paper, mixed media, 2022

‘THESE LITTLE WOUNDS WILL TRANSFORM YOUR MEMORY INTO A TREMULOUS FLOWER’, vintage box, vintage velvet paper, mixed media, 2022

‘THESE LITTLE WOUNDS WILL TRANSFORM YOUR MEMORY INTO A TREMULOUS FLOWER’ (detail), vintage box, vintage velvet paper, mixed media, 2022

‘THESE LITTLE WOUNDS WILL TRANSFORM YOUR MEMORY INTO A TREMULOUS FLOWER’ (detail), vintage box, vintage velvet paper, mixed media, 2022

‘MARGINS OF COLOURED CLOUDS WITH VIOLET REFLECTIONS’, dibond, plasticizing, 2022

‘MARGINS OF COLOURED CLOUDS WITH VIOLET REFLECTIONS’ (detail), dibond, plasticizing, 2022

‘SHIMMERING CLOUD’

The exhibition is dedicated to memory. The starting point was a found picture of a seascape devoid of any temporal references. The collected works constitute a poetic expression based on the fragility of time perception, depicted through the prism of past artifacts. In all the works, text and poetic elements remain conduits to additional visual narratives. Each wall features only one work, which clings to a particular characteristic of another, creating a chain of projections that break and outline the space into a shimmering cloud.

This fragile cloud, corroded by the ‘rust of the word’, will never disappear. Crippled by time, it allows you to play with the perception of space through melancholy, filled with both the past and the present, the volatility of things, the fragility and loss.
Everything falls apart to fall back together
…an endless process.

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'A LITTLE TENDERNESS', wood, silver chain, crystal, mixed media, 2021

'A LITTLE TENDERNESS' (detail), wood, silver chain, crystal, mixed media, 2021

'ARTIFACT, SHIMMERING CLOUD, HIDE BEHIND THE DOOR', poem, 2021

'COULD YOU HYPNOTIZE ME GENTLY?', silver chain, plastic, faux fur, beads, 2021

'COULD YOU HYPNOTIZE ME GENTLY?' (detail), silver chain, plastic, faux fur, beads, 2021

'COULD YOU HYPNOTIZE ME GENTLY?' (detail), silver chain, plastic, faux fur, beads, 2021

'TENDER CLOUD' (diptych), lithograph on paper, 2021

'TENDER CLOUD' (detail), lithograph on paper, 2021

'ONE DAY EVERYTHING WILL BE ERASED FROM YOUR MEMORY', installation view, 2021

'ONE DAY EVERYTHING WILL BE ERASED FROM YOUR MEMORY', projection, 2021

'ONE DAY EVERYTHING WILL BE ERASED FROM YOUR MEMORY' (detail), 2021