Ievgen Petrov
SOLDIERS, BEASTS, CHILDREN
5.06 - 27.06.09

New watercolors by Ievgen Petrov are titled “Soldiers, animals, kids” (2008 – 2009). They portray hunting, leisure and stories from country life.

Narrative scenes are not familiar, they seem like decorations from action movie – palm trees, elephants, crocodiles, monkeys, hippopotamuses and pandas create global picture with recognizable features of different continents. This is a world of colonial wars and barbarism. However, besides wild animals, there are domestic animals, for example, pigs, cows and dogs that participate in the same scenes, as well as other characters. Relationship between human and nature in project “Soldiers, animals, kids” is not clear all through, we can not say for sure, where the hunter is, and where is the victim, and, in general, who is who.

Soldiers hunt, do fishing and enjoy the show. They step back to secondary role in front of more cruel and active characters. Full-fledged heroes are animals and children. Animals are aggressive or unprotected, and their outcome is death. That is not because of war, but because of children. Soldiers may be animals, animals may be like kids, but only children may be both animals and soldiers.

This specific attention to children has already appeared in previous creative work of Petrov. For example, in his project “Nikifor Dobchinskiy. 25st shot” (gallery “Zeh”, 2007) he parodied glamorous kids and painting style of popular artist, and in another show “Aquapark” (gallery “Zeh”, 2008), where he portrayed animal world, the death theme has started.

In the new project by Ievgen Petrov the main theme is the cruel collision of childhood and death. Violence is shown here with awful frankness.

Human is on top of the evolution, but he just likes to kill. There are blood and dead animals that contrast with happy children faces. Human is programmed to kill, and there is no children’s innocence. We recognize kids in tiny imaginative Petrov’s plastic that also has been already tested under name of Dobchinskiy.

Is this world real? Children see it as a playground, they do not differ rules of life from rules of the game. By projecting adult subjects on to children’s world, Petrov explores it as a world of sadism, and reminds of archetypical bloodthirstiness of folklore.

Project “Soldiers, animals, kids” features large watercolor paintings, up to 150 х 200 cm in size. They produced with knowledge of specific watercolor technique, and are attractive with lightness and carefree mood. The combination of tough subject and light colors create feeling of dream and illusion. Images are constructed under the influence of media-displays, where are accidental shots, compositional fragmentariness, and practice of trophy displaying.

Watercolor technique, which is supposed to make reference to tradition, in Petrov’s artworks, uncovers his stylistic uncertainty. The syndrome of lost reality and awareness of surreal reality are expressed in paintings with all certainty: colors are vulgar and acid, natural imaginative style combines with methods of mass-media and animation.

Stylistically, Petrov is close to academism, with its cool images, and to surrealism, where scenes are pictured as a dream.

Watercolor technique, which is supposed to make reference to tradition, in Petrov’s artworks, uncovers his stylistic uncertainty. The syndrome of lost reality and awareness of surreal reality are expressed in paintings with all certainty: colors are vulgar and acid, natural imaginative style combines with methods of mass-media and animation.

Stylistically, Petrov is close to academism, with its cool images, and to surrealism, where scenes are pictured as a dream.

Characters of Ievgen Petrov are also surrealistic. They are true and suggestive. They fill the emptiness of dream, ready to dematerialize.

Artist’s detachment and aloof participation, transfer of responsibility to imaginative techniques, made us remember, that art nowadays is playing over own end. (B.Groys) The project is showing the death has become commodity as s centre of global exchange system. The system itself is left completed and nonrandom nowadays. The rest is history. Living in the world of consumption we are part of the theatre of terror, use and possession.

Oksana Barshinova,
art-historian