ILLYA ISUPOV/"COLUMBARIY" OF THE WAX PERSONAGES
17.12.2009 — 15.01.2010
Kyiv, Thursday, the 17th of December, 19.00 - "Collection" gallery opens a new personal project of a well-known Kyiv artist Illya Isupov "Columbarium" which includes wax sculptures and "copy paper" painting.
Michael Jackson, Napoleon Bonaparte together with "sovok" pionerka (pioneer-girl) and the rest of "electorate" will appear out of barricades of Chinese checked bags under the folk-wooden roof in the new project of Illya Isupov … Light playing with the revolutionary pathos of Delacroix' panting "The freedom that leads the folk" in this large installation neatly as never before appeals to the up-to-date Ukrainian realities, including political.
Illya Isupov, the author of the exhibition: "Columbarium" - is a word that has double meaning: something beautiful, pleasant but at the same time sad and final. The same way my heroes can look merry. But I didn't create them "simple". It was important to me to reach the expressiveness not in a straightforward way. My memory always has exaggerated images of my personages, that is why I use new unusual materials, such as wax or copy paper".
According to the words of art critic Olexandr Solovyov, Isupov is organically staying on the edge of genre, absurd and grotesque. The author's plots have such features as emphasized narrative, honest infantilism, changing of usual daily routine into horror. The more grotesque are there in the works of Isupov, the more unexpected are the art materials. Wax, plastic and copy paper are mixing in the complicated game, balancing delicately between the kitsch imitation and a high art. The stylistic manner of Isupov combines the traditions of the popular print, esthetics of the modernist style of the beginning of the 20th century, comics and the echoes of the "art-brut". All these styles synthesized a remarkable, very individual style.
Illya Isupov began to exhibit at the beginning of the 90s and belongs to the generation of "new wave". In 1993 his first joint exhibition together with Illya Chichkan "The Mutation of the genes" took place. Then the author presented his own big project "The Banana Republic", where fairy-tale and everyday life plots dominated in the series of painted etchings. At the end of 90s Isupov focused his graphic and art searches on computer animation and other media. 2000 the author continues experimenting with the themes, stylistics and materials, creating the projects "Beach" and "Slough", where sculpture and art objects are combined and appears the interest towards the personages of politicum.
Having a great scenic talent, Isupov creates a fairy-tale atmosphere, where endless transformations are possible, that helps to get into the world of a child's fantasies. So, for example, the last project of Illya Isupov was opened in one of the biggest Moscow galleries "Triumph" and had the name "Golden Eggs". There the author visualized the collective dream, hidden in the story about the chicken and the golden egg.
The work of Illya Isupov "The Citizen" was recently sold for nearly $ 6.500 on the most authoritative auction of the contemporary art Philips de Pury & Co, that took place in London.
The opening of the exhibition will take place on the 17th of December, as usual on Thursday, at 19.00 at the address: Kyiv, vyl. Pankivska, 8, Collection Gallery. More information, commentaries and reproductions you can get from Daryna Zholdak, the director of Y. Kogutyak's gallery "Collection" on zholdak@collectiongallery.com.ua or zholdak@gmail.com by the tel.: 067 401 12 01
www.collectiongallery.com.ua
ILLYA ISUPOV
Illya Isupov began to exhibit at the beginning of the 90s. in 1993 his joint exhibition with Illya Chichkan "The Mutation of the genes" took place. A year later he presented a wide individual project "The Banana Republic". Big white paper sheets, done in the author's watercolor technique, black and white or colored etching created the basis of these expositions. Fairy-tale and everyday life plots dominate. Expressed narrative style, fable, honest infantilism, where the everyday routine changes into horror film, reserved color gamma as if it was dimmed with a grey-blue curtain - are the distinctive features of these works. At that time the stylistic manner of the artist was created. That manner combines the traditions of the popular print, esthetics of the modernism of the beginning of the 20th century, comics, the reminiscences of art-brut (first in the paintings "A Woman with Birds", "Shanghai Queen", "The Ace of Diamonds", where the bodies of the personages are covered with tattoos). He managed to synthesize all of these styles into his own unique and very individual style.
The paintings on the canvas are also distinguished by the uniqueness of his art style, created on the breaking point between the decadence and the artistic na?ve feeling of the world. But here appear some new associative moments. If the painting "Harmony" with its "physiology" wakes the manikins of the Italian "metaphysical art" in the memory, building itself by the principle of penetrating "autopsy" look, the "003" painting - is a "cinematographic" fragment, unremarkable from the first sight, static, but the coded extreme is coming out from it drop by drop.
In the end of 90s Isupov focused his graphic and art searches with the help of computer animation in the multimedia project "Thirst/Interactive Object of Thirst". This work became a symbolic experiment of combination of the traditional "painting" technique with the potential of new technologies in the incredible video-fabric. Such combination signficantly widens the image - with morphine, animation and electronic music. In the "Thirst" the quotations out of his previous works are dragged into consecutive series of transformations and mutations. The fairy-tale atmosphere of the opuses of the artist immediately assumed the possibility of never-ending creative transformation reviving the world of child's hopes, where the unexpected and fantastic changes become possible.
2000 the author continued his experiments with themes, stylistic and materials. Black and white grisaille monochrome of his canvases that belong to the series "Beach", simple and carelessly painted, creates the effect of a blurry photo and wakes nostalgia after the previous epoch. In the cycle shown in the exhibition "Whirlpool" there appear the wax objects, where the sculpture and painting sketches combine the interest of the artist towards the personages of the politics. As earlier, Isupov is organically holding on the edge of the genre, absurd and grotesque. The more grotesque there is in the painting, the more unexpected materials the artist uses. Wax, plastic and copy paper… On this basis the artist puts his painting in one of his series "Golden Eggs", playful visualization of the collective dream from the fairy-tale about the golden egg, mixing and balancing in the complicated game between the kitsch and the high art.
© Olexandr Solovyov, 2009
