ARTIST: IRINA DROZD
CURATED BY: IRINA RUSINOVICH
LOCATION: Bulowstrasse 11, 10789, Berlin
EXHIBITION DURATION: 11.02.2022 - 26.02.2022
VERNISSAGE: 10.02.2022 AT 7PM
The symbol and the symbolic image have always been among the most sought-after and beloved themes in art. The fears, archetypes, images, and symbols that our subconscious reproduces are striking in their diversity, depth of semiotic meanings, and allegoricality.
It is impressive how others read abstract images recreated by one person on an unconscious level. Even when we cannot directly grasp the connotative signification intended by the author, much is grasped through common cultural archetypes, through the inner reference points and images laid down in us by nature. It is impossible to read Lovecraft's works without feeling a vague unease, even where seemingly trivial everyday events are described. It's also impossible not to feel the disquieting mood of Goya's etchings which make us all sense the growing fear of monsters looming in our vicinity.
The exhibition Dinner with the Monster tells of childhood fears that many of us carry through our lives. Irina Drozd explores in her works how people since childhood test the boundaries of what is permissible in society and what is not, and why, and how far each of us can go. This is a kind of dialogue with one's inner demons, the stereotypes of good and evil, which the author wraps up in the images of fairy-tale characters and attributes familiar to us from childhood.
Revealing the theme of subconscious anxiety, the artist recreates disturbing, painful images of abstract monsters in her works. What adds even more drama to the paintings is the presence of children who, for all their apparent purity and naivety, arouse horror in the beholder, frightening him with their undisguised directness and quiet acceptance of the cruel adult world. Here a little girl's charming smile is juxtaposed with a slain monster on a plate. The cold, regal beauty of children's faces is interspersed with the suffering of monsters. But who is the real monster here, the viewer still has to decide: the little dead creature or the sweet girl, whose face we can read with undisguised pleasure and rapture of their own superiority?
IRINA DROZD
Graduated from the department of monumental painting at the St. Petersburg State Academy of Art and Industry. B. Stieglitz.
Since 2009, exhibitions of Irina Drozd have been regularly held throughout Europe. Now the artist lives and works in Russia and Hungary.
In her work Irina shows the interdependence and conditioning of good and evil, the thin line where one passes into the other. Everyday scenes in her works are filled with fantastical characters that remind us of the existence of what is unknown to reason.