Mariia Drozdova (UKR)

Isolation in a way was made easier for me by art, that’s the space where you can go in any situation. It was difficult without live communication with the public, a lot of offline projects were cancelled.

For myself I realized that I turned to my inner world more than I had any contact with the outside world. This was also reflected in my artistic practice, I began to devote more time to painting and drawing. The images became more symbolic, realism began to border on abstraction.

I began to be interested in themes of duality, loneliness, the relationship with the past. I also had to deal with COVID-19 on my personal experience. It was complicated.

It’s a picture of the past, of experiences and actions. Traditionally, the halo is depicted from behind, the owner of the halo cannot see it. Here the owner of the halo is not looking at the halo, but as if in the depths of the space that forms the halo. The halo is black, not gold, as tradition dictates. Mysticism and elusive sacrality are united in this work. I can categorize this work as magical realism.It’s a work of rethinking, acceptance, honesty with yourself.

Dürer’s contemporaries perceived the image of death (skeletons, dead people) as a “dead self” – a double of a living person. For Dürer’s contemporaries death was not something distant. They constantly felt the invisible presence of death. In Dürer’s The Walk, this presence is not only palpable, it is natural and inevitable. Modern man drives away thoughts of death and strives to live as long as possible. He wants to be an embryo, that is, to be a beginning that does not know what the end is.

The “pixel” baby is a new time, a new perception, a new person.

At the top is the “Dead Self,” from the chest comes a guide that refracts into an hourglass and aspires to the “pixel” infant. The golden rails, in place with the infinite circles – form the dial of the clock. Time is a constant, it is ruthless even to the baby.