MIRAGE

Press release

Lying on the beach... or in the field? Reading National Geographic. Full tan. Butterflies are flying above me, and in front of me is a huge translucent elephant, behind which the sea appears on the horizon - the border of reality. But it is also so vague and illusory. Or maybe I'm dreaming about it?

From October 27 to November 12, ASKERI GALLERY presented the long–awaited exhibition of the Russian artist Pavel Polanski - "Mirage".

His bright, full of life, dreamy canvases from the new series are like a sweet dream on a frosty winter morning. When it's so warm under the blanket and, dreaming of summer, you're struggling to grab hold of a bright colored illusion. But the colors fade, and the dream crumbles: pixels are already appearing in places, the elephant dissolves into the horizon, and the threatening roar of the Night Cheetah is just an alarm clock: it's time to get up for work.

The combination of bright color spots with monochrome elements in Pavel's works reflects the gap and, at the same time, the interpenetration of reality and fantasy, and the breakdown of the image into several parts, like a comic book, gives the works narrative.

Life is contradictory and paradoxical, and this is exactly what attracts Pavel so much in his artistic research. And if usually the result is works referring to the problems of technological development, consumption and pop culture, then this time the artist, as if observing from the outside the measured course of life, presents to the viewer light and ironic notes about the pressing. Who said that police officers do not hover in the clouds, flipping through Vogue for a glass of warm milk, and Dobermans are alien to dreams of flying? The consciousness of a modern person is full of imposed cliches and prejudices, and very often things that are simply difficult for us to imagine turn into the category of "everyday mirages".

Artists