BREAKWATER
Ievgen Petrov
10.02 - 1.05.2015
Watercolor, sculpture

Any crisis, a chronic one in particular, provokes a reaction. An artist is not an exception to this. For Petrov, this reaction is embodied in the project “Pier” which he started back in 2013. Under these extremely difficult circumstances there was no surprise in the choice of the topic. Petrov believes that as long as the language of description of Maidan and the war is not established and is only expanding its vocabulary, the artist’s reaction to these topics is secondary and cannot be more relevant that the events themselves; moreover, it resembles illustrations to a cheap magazine which does nothing to contribute to emergence of this language. Petrov prefers to abstract. And the pier is a perfect place for that.

Over a long period of time of working on the project Yevgen noticed that increasingly more people appeared on the pier. The pier, in fact as before, remained the main free attraction and the scene of beach performance; now it has replaced a confessional and mediation mat for people, and Petrov himself replaced the usual story component focusing on an inanimate object for the first time. People are considered in the same ontological plane with seagulls, waves, tires, and ice blocks. In the “Pier” Petrov builds an orbit with many different equal actors where the pier is central.

And while we are watching interactions of real object behind the curtains slightly opened by Petrov, we start to perceive this rough piece of concrete burnt on canvas with watercolors as a sensual object.

Geller Sasha