Petrov has always sincerely said that he is interested in working with live topics that engage him rather than creating complicated theoretical constructs. This project is dedicated to people who, with the will of fate, found themselves in a strange environment with their cultural code and to their attempts to interact with an unfamiliar environment. The exhibition does not focus only on immigrants from ‘third-world countries’; it is about different people who are torn from their home - from the Slavs and the Yakuza to the Queen of Britain and astronauts.
 

In Petrov’s paintings it is impossible not to mention two aspects: the technique and the presentation of the plot. This is his first watercolor exhibition in two years executed in monochrome watercolor and stylized to simulate the newspaper texture to give the paintings a flair of documentary. The general narrative of the exhibition is represented in nine paintings, each of them full of subtle hints so that an attentive spectator could not only find an ironic layer but also make up the story seen on the canvas. For instance, the “babushka” selling pickles at Cloud Gate does not only provoke a smile but also gives an opportunity to look at our daily life, urban space and socio-economic arrangements from a different angle. Increasingly, text is used for such an intellectual move, but Petrov succeeds in achieving this through exclusively expressive means.

 

One can imagine that all nine paintings are captions from a series titled “Where we are not” where each painting simultaneously tells both the general story and its own.