STRATIGRAPHY
Solo show, December 2018, RED DOOR Art Space, London
Geometric sculptures that evoke ancient ruins*
The main thing that the viewer is bound to discover at Irina Razumovskaya’s solo exhibition “Stratigraphy” is the author’s foresight into the looming change of aesthetic eras. There is a growing weariness with the current organic trends in art and architecture, and the artist is challenging the viewer with a request to review the traditional perception of classical forms and proclaims their renaissance.
What can make us reconsider our deep-rooted ideas of familiar objects? Firstly, the artist draws our attention to the common elements of architecture that we are so accustomed to, that they have long disappeared from our sight into the background of everyday life. The flights of the stairs, balancing in the air, become one of the main characters of the exhibition. The humanity uses the stairs from antiquity, descending into the depths of crypts or rising to altars. Another work, Stela, is a column with a capital leaning against a frieze, taken out of the context, becomes a monument to itself, to its shape – ideal and polished for thousands of years.
Secondly, the author creates these monumental objects using the material that is not applicable to their usual function: clay that is traditionally associated with fragility and brittleness. This dichotomy creates a clash between our expectations from the material and the images portrayed in it. The author is our contemporary, existing with us in the same rhythm and therefore, one needs to trust her and to go through this experiment with her. No one can predict how the mind would react to these visual stimuli, perhaps something can shift in the way we approach these quotidian images, and hopefully, the new dimension of sensations will be found.
*Curatorial essay by Natalia Schneider
The main thing that the viewer is bound to discover at Irina Razumovskaya’s solo exhibition “Stratigraphy” is the author’s foresight into the looming change of aesthetic eras. There is a growing weariness with the current organic trends in art and architecture, and the artist is challenging the viewer with a request to review the traditional perception of classical forms and proclaims their renaissance.
What can make us reconsider our deep-rooted ideas of familiar objects? Firstly, the artist draws our attention to the common elements of architecture that we are so accustomed to, that they have long disappeared from our sight into the background of everyday life. The flights of the stairs, balancing in the air, become one of the main characters of the exhibition. The humanity uses the stairs from antiquity, descending into the depths of crypts or rising to altars. Another work, Stela, is a column with a capital leaning against a frieze, taken out of the context, becomes a monument to itself, to its shape – ideal and polished for thousands of years.
Secondly, the author creates these monumental objects using the material that is not applicable to their usual function: clay that is traditionally associated with fragility and brittleness. This dichotomy creates a clash between our expectations from the material and the images portrayed in it. The author is our contemporary, existing with us in the same rhythm and therefore, one needs to trust her and to go through this experiment with her. No one can predict how the mind would react to these visual stimuli, perhaps something can shift in the way we approach these quotidian images, and hopefully, the new dimension of sensations will be found.
*Curatorial essay by Natalia Schneider