The London–Moscow project in partnership with Art Number 23 are presenting the exhibition ‘Present Perfect Continuous’, which will be held at The Zverev Contemporary Art Centre from the 1st November until the 14th November 2018. Artists from several countries, including Russia (Moscow) and the UK, were invited to visualize their present moment through their work.
The Curators: Constantine Anjulatos (London) Anna Neizvestnova (Moscow)
Zverev Contemporary Art Centre 29, Novoryazanskaya St., Moscow
The sponsor of the exhibition project RINET
@ Designer Anna Neizvestnova
YANA SMETANINA http://jankasmetanina.jimdo.com/ http://paintedbird.jimdo.com/
Born in 1976 in Belebey, Bashkiria. Educated at the School of Animation Cinematography, the Moscow State University of Printing Arts and the Institute of Contemporary Art. She has worked at the Pilot animation studio and collaborated with publications including Krokodil and Smena.
Self portrait
ANDREY KUZKIN qzandr@bk.ru
I work in the field of contemporary art. The basis of creativity are actions, performances, installations. I’ve participated in many exhibition projects. I live and work in Moscow.
‘The Living Right’
DAMARIS ATHENE www.damarisathene.co.uk damarisathene@gmail.com
Damaris Athene graduated from Camberwell College of Arts in 2015 and investigates the corporeal and abstraction of the human form, mainly through painting. Athene explores Julia Kristeva’s writings on the abject, confronting our shared mortality and the notion of our bodies as pure matter. The body becomes unrecognisable: images are re-appropriated from medicine, scale is vastly changed or body parts are digitally manipulated. The ‘Trauma’ series depicts bruises: delicately painted, contradicting their forceful and painful creation. The beauty in these apparently abstract images seems at odds with their abject subject matter, creating a captivating dichotomy. ‘Trauma IV’
SUZANNE DE EMMONY www.suzannedeemmony.com www.taniaderozario.com
This work is part of an on-going collaboration between London based artist, Suzanne de Emmony and the Singaporean poet Tania De Rozario. A contemporary update of the Surrealist game of Exquisite Corpse. The work is produced via virtual exchange - each piece created in turn and response to the former. Emailed exchanges using text (De Rozario) and images (de Emmony) as an attempt to unravel possible shared experiences and memories in order to transcend the distances in culture, generation and geography that would seem to separate them. ‘Mysterious Objects at Noon’ Parts 1 - 6 Suzanne de Emmony & Tania De Rozario
VERONICA SHIMANOVSKAYA, DFA www.yellowparrot.com shimanovskaya@post.harvard.edu
As an artist, whose life evolved in and between three different cultures , Veronica is intrigued by the differences in perception and their relationship to pure subjectivity. She believes that the function of art is to perpetually remind us of the complexity, and wholeness of this world, while aiding in any quest for identity and relationship with this complexity. No end (2016) is an attempt to re-create this message in the form of visual narrative using minimal means. This piece is an abstracted visual metaphor, and a momentous impression of life. It aims to create a sensual and reflective experience with the minimal means and explore the possibilities of moving image. Veronica Shimanovskaya studied art, architecture and theatre, and earned her MA and Doctorate degrees from the University of East London, University of Architecture and Civil Engineering and Harvard University respectively. She works in painting, object making, moving image, and immersive installation, and exhibits internationally. ‘No end’
SOFIA RAZUMOVA artazzurro@gmail.com
Bear proves to be a traditional hero of different legends and folktales, representing a whole range of qualities. The author views the bear as a symbol of freedom and energy of nature. In Russia the bear is regarded to be the master of taiga. The author considers the bear to be a brave and powerful animal able to bear any hardships in its way to defend its home and free spirit. That is why the painting is entitled ‘Valiance’. ‘Valiance’
SINA GHAHREMANI www.sinaart.co.uk sinaart.co.uk@gmail.com
‘Since the beginning’ is narrating the old and always the story of Love of human. The human had been always tried to find the utmost love that it desired. This love that it always seeks, represents from its inside on all things it observes. This would be God, a human, nature and etc. The portrait of an old man presents a human spent and lost his life and age for his search and travel inside his heart to find his desired love. Love is portrayed as a female upraises in light, which is the utmost stage would present an imaginary portrait of God.
‘Since the beginning’
CHRISTOPHER RELPH SMITH www.chrissmith.gallereo.com chris@isoxford.com
Part of a series, this painting explores the horizon line of the sea as at 10 threshold that divides the terrestrial from the submarine. ‘A submarine eruption is more powerful than its terrestrial equivalent’ (OED Online). At a formal level the horizon line provides me with call and echo possibilities, whilst pattern helps stabilise the content like a net. Thematically, but obliquely, the use of pattern represents some background concern about nature’s repetition and the scientific synthetic that disrupts it. This apparent tension between what might be considered random and that which is ordered aptly describes the biggest challenge in painting: to find a moment of accommodation where both can co-exist. ‘Structural Sea Series’
ANNA SUDBINA www.annasudbinastudio.com anna.sudbina@gmail.com
‘The Walk’ establishes a dialogue with the old masters bringing back the Renaissance palette and classical feel yet it is relatable, fresh and contemporary. It draws upon figurative paintings of the past but layer by layer, like time chipping away at the memories, the details start disappearing. As in many of Sudbina’s works the painting is overlaid and the initial literal description reseeds behind layers of paint whose purpose is to introduce another kind of information relating to feeling. Unlike the canvases of the past it communicates by bypassing the formalised understanding of the world and prescribed meaning and instead is calling upon viewers’ imagination and is opened for interpretation. Anna was born in Moscow in 1984. She came of age in the post-Soviet Russia where apart from doing academic drawing and painting she studied linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. Aged 21 she moved to London, where she graduated from Central St Martins. ‘The Walk’
KATRīNA TRAčUMA www.katrinatracuma.com hello@katrinatracuma.com
Gender, other than a biological or physical determination of the sexes, is a cultural and social classification of masculinity and femininity, within the gender binary system. Gender presentations are the outcome of the societal process of defining sexual and social identity, and may retain gender ambiguity in the form of androgyny. The work focuses on these often stereotyped and socially constructed aspects of individuality, as refracted through the prism of symbolic use of flora and fauna imagery. The human body is central to how we understand such facets of the self, and the understanding of gender is intrinsically linked to the human gender narratives within aesthetics, media, history, and personal experiences – across cultures – and how their meaning either coexists or conflicts with modern lifestyles. Thus, the aim of the work is to emphasize the fluidity of gender, while refusing to adhere to statistically feminine or masculine characteristics and expectations.
‘Tiger’ and ‘Boy’
LAURA HOGAN earth.laurahogan@gmail.com www.laurahoganslines.com
My work investigates the dialogue between illusion and reality, between fantastical imagination and knowledgeable experience. I see my paintings as kinaesthetic conversations between art and science, experimenting with reality while illustrating thoughts.
‘On Thinking’
IOANA NICULESCU-ARON
ioana.niculescuaron@gmail.com
A common feature of many works of mine is the fact that I use the frame as an element inside the outer limit of the canvas. I juggle with the dimensions of this frames – squares in the case of the works from the ‘Screen Study’ series. I talk about abstract painting, I understand and assume this side and the need to express myself this way. I materialize this by almost transparent layers of primer or color. I give depth into space and the light of color from almost nothing. I build textures and densities. I let myself get lost first in an abyss of color inside a detail of microscope. I separate then through thin lines of architecture the purity of color. I like to draw to thin out and to thicken the lines. ‘Screen Study 4’
REBECCA LOWETH www.rebeccaloweth.com rebeccaloweth@gmail.com
My works in this show consist of two postcards that have been cut to interlock together, creating a new image. By interlocking in this way one image feeds into the other creating a continuum. One landscape continues into the next, one architectural feature continues into the next. Although both works are quite different, they both share a concept of a perfect depiction, an image of a perfect landscape or building to send or keep as a souvenir of your experience. My practice focuses on the concept of artifice and the aspirations of ideals, these ideas serve as the impetus to produce film, collage and sculpture. The idea of expectation, reality and artificiality of the holiday experience is integral to my work. I am interested in the process of manipulation behind the concept of the polished reality that the commercial souvenir must represent, exploring the ritual of the authentication and ownership. ‘Just Became Engaged’
NATALIA JEZOVA iwww.nataliajezova.com natalia1jezova@gmail.com
My philosophical inspiration is based on the concept of the personal, collective memory and the interpretation of the past. My work tends to be multi-layered and to have various encoded meanings. I am currently undertaking a Professional Doctorate in Fine Art at the University of East London. FilmThe Swallow(2017), 7min, B&W https://vimeo.com/219015008 The film The Swallow is triggered by my memories of an art residency in North Greece in summer 2016. I was a part of the group of artist who visited places most affected by the Civil War in Greece. Places where life has suddenly stopped. The most tragic events with mass liquidations and forced emigration happened during the Civil War in Greece. Many villages were completely destroyed. Hundreds of thousand were forced to flee their homes and escape to other countries in order to avoid persecution. Tens of thousands children were removed from their parents and evacuated to other countries in order to prevent them from being killed by the Greek government. After the war, many of child refugees were not permitted to return to their birthplaces and to be reunited with their families. ‘The Swallow’
MARTHA ELLIS info@marthaellisdesign.com www.marthaelllisdesign.com
Martha has been inspired by the Palm House at Kew Gardens, London. Obsessed with the challenge of drawing the complex structure in positive negative space and depicting the man made with the natural world. Martha starts with pencil and paper as she spends hours drawing from life in her sketchbook. These line drawings are then hand drawn on to the computer, painstakingly adding detail until she is finally happy with the composition. Using laser technology, Martha then creates bold, eye catching and intriguing drawing which hang directly onto the wall where they cast beautiful shadows which change with the light. ‘Glass House’
NIKKI ALLFORD nnikki.allford2@gmail.com
Hidden away in Bathwick, on the banks of the River Avon, is the only surviving Georgian Lido in the UK. The derelict Cleveland Pools has become a haven for wildlife. Sea of Sighs was made in response to a residency at The Pools. Inspired by the empty children’s swimming pool. Such a lost place. Made primarily from vivid blue electrical tape suggestive of water pools, raindrops, teardrops or Japanese gardens. The way repetitive actions can result in the formation of work, the accumulation of lines and tape, is investigated. Incorporated are photographs that evoke the absence/presence of the human body within the space. Cleveland Pools was a fitting context, with it’s atmosphere of melancholic beauty and decaying past splendour, creating a connection between the past and the present. Ideas of Memory and Place are explored. Nikki Allford is a maker and Installation artist based in Bristol UK. ‘Sea of Sighs’
GEORGINA MAXWELL www.georginamaxwell.org gmaxwell1460@gmail.com
My art practice responds to the plight of cetaceans and other marine inhabitants in their struggle for survival in a desensitized, plastic‑addicted world. My work has always involved a process. I have been cleansing the oceans of toxic plastics for the last 20 years. These fragments all have a story to tell that I can only imagine...once held by someone. The possibility of a Tibetan prayer flag finding it’s way to a Cornish shoreline is remote... an epic journey.The fragmented sun/ocean bleached plastic bag conjured images of organic wrinkled skin.. it also has jouneyed from the plastics factory to the oceans and beyond. They both fall within the process of time... past, present and future travels. How long had these fragments been at sea for? what had they witnessed? among the most beautiful, powerful force in nature, being crushed and pummelled by the crashing waves. On finding these fragments on a cold winters day...it is only through washing and examining, that I saw their beauty.
‘Prayer to the Sacred Oceans’
PETER D’ALESSANDRI www.dalessandri.co.uk dalessandri@gmail.com
Portrait of my friend Michael. I used to see Michael everyday – we walked our dogs together. He’d been through some rough times and had ended up homeless. When I first met him, he was staying in sheltered accommodation provided by a local charity. It’s easy to be judgemental when you see homeless people begging on the street. I am all the time. Perhaps I should think more about how, when I had the chance to get to know Michael, I found him to be one the nicest, most caring, and hardest working people I know. Michael had just lost his dog before sitting for this painting, and was heading for another rough time. I lost touch with him about then. I hope he’s alright.
‘Michael’
DIOGO DUARTE contact@diogo-duarte.com www.diogo-duarte.com
In Act I of ‘Sour-puss The Opera’ image maker Diogo Duarte presents photographs of one woman seemingly lost in melancholic reverie. This woman is incapable of pretence and as her internal world is laid bare it strips away the viewer’s own defences. This series is Diogo’s rebuttal to a world that asks us to put a positive spin on our emotions, to look our best and put the right foot forward. It seeks to make a community of people who want to engage with their own fears, compulsions, shame and sadness. Diogo and psychotherapist Jessica Mitchell started this unlikely collaboration (where she poses for him) whilst bonding over each and their own tendencies for peering too much over the edge, perhaps as a way to collectively realise that lingering on the edge doesn’t have to be just clinical; it can also be a lyrical way of being.
‘Sour-Puss The Opera’
ELIS LIN
www.mselis.com elis.lin0313@outlook.com
Whenever a person left this world or a place in this world he/she always leaves a mark behind. This mark could be of physical nature or a non-tangible one just like moments floating in the memory. For all thoughts and experiences about a particular person are traces which are left behind by that person so others can remember him/ her. “ With the help of my fingers. I try to record the movements as traces of my existence. I tried to develop a conversation with these marks because to me these are not lifeless stains or objects; it is as the visual records of the people who were once present and now gone and out of sight but still in our memories.
‘Tangible II’
CHALICE MITCHELL www.chalicemitchell.com chalicemitchell@gmail.com
My work addresses impermanence, identity, power dynamics, eroticism and spirituality. Fluidity and the overlap of apparent opposites are consistent elements both conceptually and aesthetically. This is reflected in the balance between the representation of the figure and the physical properties of the materials. I use ambiguity as a visual devise to unravel the division of self/other and mind/body. Eastern thought on the nature of non-duality informs my aesthetic sensibilities. The physical properties of my paintings, as well as the process of creating them, echoes the crossover of polarities. Recreating the feeling conveyed by poses drawn from historic religious paintings, I pared down the image to a few bare essentials, stripping away the full context yet leaving enough to suggest a touch of sensuality. The overlap of Christianity and sensuality in the canon of Western art is fascinating to me. ‘Holy G’
JAVIER MARTEN www.javiermarten.art javiermarten@gmail.com
The morphologies I portray on the canvas are routes. The dominant flow of energy as paths of freedom to the cosmos and its multidimensional spaces and time. A non stop change with no boundaries. I selected the colors of cosmos and the topography of natural territories: the factualness of rivers, currents like roads in front of the movement of light and water, inspire me. My work starts from these repertoires of references and their identity negotiates and constructs flexibly from mixed and multifocal perspectives. In this round canvas appear two planes. The back plane is the depth is, the unconscious mind. And the front plain, dominates flow as synesthetic interpretations of the universe, the vigorous rhythm and strong contrasts of its biomorphic, sounds, not only looks but also has simultaneous chords ‘Dominant’
MELITTA NEMETH www.melnemeth.blogspot.com nmelitta@gmail.com
The title of my work is Overmagnified Theory. It is a wooden box that contains details of the Concrete Art Manifesto (Theo van Doesburg 1930) printed on clear vinyl. This work focuses on how art theories and manifestos remain active and unchanged for a long time after they were written, hindering the natural development of some artist. Artists and art writers are still trying to use these theories. They were useful and true in the moment they were written, but they should not be used forever since they are only documents of the past. The viewers are looking into the box and they see the overmagnifyied details of the manifesto through a magnifying glass that is built in the box like a window. This works brings out people’s natural desire to peep in closed spaces, to explore hidden things. ‘Overmagnified Theory’
JUDITH BEEBY judithbeeby.com judithpickering@aol.com
This painting was inspired by the flickering flames of a log fire late at night. It represents the hearth as the centre of the home. The combination of gloss paint and resin gives the works a depth and gloss that mimics the glow of an open fire.
‘Flame’
MIN ANGEL min.angel@mac.com www.minangel@mac.com
Drawing on happenchance, observation, memory, imagination and speculation I explore the stuff in our peripheral vision and the stuff beyond it – the otherworldly. Questioning What was? What is ? and What if? is my current preoccupation. In An Unspecified Time You Are Looking At This..., I consider painting in space and time; the potential for the continuation of painterly compositions through gesture, reconfiguration, placement and engagement.
‘In An Unspecified Time You Are Looking At This...’
EMMA DOLPHIN emma.dolphin@network.rca.ac.uk
Through the use of time-based media, installation/sculpture, photography and printmaking, my work examines the elusive and the illusory. I offer the viewer traces of events that may be current, previous or have the potential to be experiences of what could be termed as ‘elusive moments’. That is, the fleeting moment of transition between the subconscious and conscious thoughts: the ephemeral that transpires into the precise moment of here and now. The elusive evolves in that moment of confronting, for instance, the illusion of a painted image as though it is real, in that moment of slippage. The illusory and the elusive provide channels of communication and connection, a momentary portal between the viewer, the work and the artist, the viewer bringing their experience and imagination to the work – thus completing the circuit.
‘Are you a stranger?’ Film Still from moving image, titled ‘Should Our Paths Cross’
KATERINA SUSOEVA canal_etto@list.ru
Ekaterina Sysoeva was born in Novomoskovsk. In 2000 she graduated from the Moscow state textile University as an artist-stylist. Since 2005 member of the Moscow Union of Artists. Participant of special projects of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th Moscow Biennale of contemporary art, “Art Paris-2004” and “ARTKLYAZMA-2004”. Her works are in the collections of the “Open club”, Zverevsky center for contemporary art, RUARTS gallery, private collections in Russia and abroad. Regularly participates in exhibition projects of the “Kovcheg” gallery, Vera Pogodina gallery and Zverevsky center for contemporary art. Lives and works in Moscow. Untitled
EVA ZHIGALOVA fotoezhig@gmail.com
Friends, acquaintances, people who inspire me. Close and not familiar. Construction and morphing. Old and new. Alive and dead. The subjects that I touch on in my works somehow related with feminist criticism and optics. In particular I am interested in aspects such as sexuality, exclusion and power. The performative practice, I cover topics related to communication between people (communication problem), some social problems. I am trying to analyze the problems of ‘personal’ and ‘political’ as a form of artistic expression. Interesting Situationist practice and self-organization as a form of interaction in the artistic environment. I work at the intersection of photo and video-art, performative practices. ‘Metamorphosis’ (from the series of collages)
IGOR BASKIN igorbaskin@mail.ru
Igor Baskin is wellknown as an interdisciplinary author, who is close to any borders in art. The Thousand and One Day project of illustrations for news headlines. This is visualization of information product, existential reflection of the artist on the current information market flows, objectification of the perception of the information product by us, information consumers. The world watches through our eyes with indifferent smile nowadays passing.
‘Pitbull beat off a schoolgirl from a man who tried to drag her into the woods’ 2018.10.08 | rusplt.ru
MIKHAIL TSELMS Renew-art.wix.com/renew-art
Art pieces combine wood, chip board, priming, paint, mixed media art techniques: metal, plastic, glass. The artwork I produce is a contribution to the field of RENEW-art, also known as the Art of ReCreation. Its main focus goes into creating abstract artistic assemblages out of the recycled fragments of used, broken, found and trashed items. The work I produce belongs to non‑objective art, portraying form and colour, composition and inner meaning, human subconscious codes. The fragments on coloured boards, fixed in fantastical combinations is my way to provoke the imagination and feed the subconscious mind. RENEW-art is the second life of trashed and broken stuff. The term RENEW is synonymous with «regenerate, restore, rebuild, repeat, return, stir up emotions». RENEW-art is an abstract art, that resists chaos and decay. RENEW-art is how shards of civilization create a mosaic of fantasy. Public involved in RENEW-art creates the images and undertones in tandem with the artist.
Self portrait
ALEXEY BEVZA
aleksei_bevza@bk.ru
‘Art is a way to achieve immortality’ - comprehension of the abovementioned principle as the most important, and announcing its fundamental, absolute - this is the ideological super-task of the cycle ‘METASPHERES II’. The problematics of this topic lies in the deep understanding of the transhistorical nature of works of art, the uncertainty of the time of their occurrence, the eternity of their existence in modern perception.
‘MELPOMENA’
TATYANA NOVIKOVA
In my work I try to rethink the images of ancient idols in the context of modern digital reality. ‘@david’
DIANA GALIMZYANOVA
Diana Galimzyanova is a filmmaker and video artist based in Moscow, Russia. Her award-winning short films were accepted to more than sixty festivals in fifteen countries, and her art pieces have been a part of group exhibitions in multiple countries. Diana Galimzyanova, Artem Gavrilyuk-Bozhko ‘Drawing the abyss’
LANA KUDINOVA
s.chaukina@gmail.com
The absence of clothes renders a person vulnerable. Clothes provide a chance to cross out all imperfections of the body, to hide behind a role, image, style. It protects from the burning, piercing shame hidden deep inside: a shame for belly rolls, for thighs that are too thick, neck too short, palms too big, or feet too long. Without clothes, there is nowhere to hide, nowhere to find refuge from the self-consciousness caused by the bodily imperfections. The level of anxiety that modern women experience because of the perception of their own body is extremely high. Comparing themselves to others and to the images transmitted by the media, they remain in the constant state of striving for perfection. Yet all the attempts, tricks, and even achievements are in vain – not only do they fail to liberate women from their shame, they make it stronger. The ideal image is still as remote as ever, constantly changing and essentially unattainable. Today it is fashionable to be thin, tomorrow – to have round breasts and narrow waist. And still, you never fit in. We know how to trick the mirror: choose the best pose, suck in the stomach, stretch the neck. But the camera is not as amenable, and often it doesn’t conceal the visible. On the contrary, it reveals the “imperfections,” departing further and further from the fictitious, ideally constructed corporeality. ‘Shame’
KONSTANTIN ADJER adjer.art@gmail.com
I am a media archaeologist, digging up layers of existing or fictional presence of stories within media sources created by me or other people. I extract images from archives or Internet sites. I explore the boundaries between photography and painting, between existing and non-existent, changing and strengthening the meanings. I collect the world from the emptiness of the digital universe and re-break the mirror of the photo. I refer to the image as a carrier of memory with its aberrations in time and context. I am a media designer playing with the process of creating and processing images. I work with a printer or computer programs like an improvising musician or DJ. I am meditatively serious or cynically ironic. I hunt for the white holes of human attention and assign them the status of a work of art. PJ (Print Jockey) technique is a PVC sheet looped in a plotter, which passes several circles of printing. There are two types of reception: automatic static pattern,and improvisation, when in the printing process I change the images. ‘01 | PJ_Loop’
ARTISTS REPRESENTED BY ART NUMBER 23
Ronald Gonzalez
www.ronaldgonzalezstudio.com rsculpture@yahoo.com
Mia-Jane Harris www.mia-janeharris.co.uk mia-jane@live.com
Kim Wan www.kimwanart.com info@kimwanart.com