My paintings in the project Melancholy. Hüzün are combined with the theme of the influence of time on the surrounding world and the change of material structure as a criterion for measuring life. Fixing imperceptible at first glance usual things, extracted from the depths of memory, which remain out of sight, but although they bear the stratification of time and specific stories and events, forgotten and erased.
The works which are presented here were created in Lviv and Istanbul. These cities are different in nature, however, because of a peculiar atmosphere, they sometimes have a similar effect on their inhabitants and visitors. They inspire the most focused and long-lasting visual research with their old and ruined surfaces.
In Turkish, there is the word Hüzün, the meaning of which is close to the concept of all-pervading melancholy, but its meaning is something wider. It accurately characterizes the sensation that is traced in urban environments and determines the state of the soul of their inhabitants, who at the same time feel their connection with the whole city that unites them. If you try to feel this melancholy, then it can become visible, may allow you to see the overlay of the common experience on the individual and vice versa.
Watching a moment, representation of an alternative of the modern world’s pursuit for the entertainment and circuses – the main ideas of this project. I wish, that the physical feeling of the space will be erased before my painting and in the same time, and the deep thoughts will be waking up.
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I work in the frame of the general conception, in accordance with which the painting practice, as an art form, is in the process of the essential transformation. I am trying to move away myself from the usage of the image with the insert plot. In this relation, the crossing to the creation the structural unity of the image inside of the painting form, can appear. The purpose of such crossing is the recognition of inalienable nature of painting as it is, and this is the fundamental progress in the paradigm of our understanding of the art of painting, which refers to the nature of being. And right after, the understanding of the picture appears before us, i.e., the recognition of the integration of the material, of which it was made and the autonomy of its influence on us as well.
Arsen Bereza