Four years ago Mykola Malyshko's project Stage I. Stage II was one of the first exhibitions in Dnipropetrovsk art center. As "Malyshko's year" carries on, Ya Gallery presents his second personal project in this city.

This set of small clay sculptures is a series of sketches of author's wooden figures. Just like a tree naturally impersonates a human being, Malyshko uses clay, which ancient gods used to create people, to model forms of the future sculptures. So "Clay" reveals the history of creative ideas, those that are already implemented alongside those that are still waiting for their times.

Standing at the beginning of a new unknown evolutionary stage Malyshko the artist gives way to Malyshko the tinker, he feels an urgent necessity to express his spiritual substance. Through these clay symbols artist reveals the ancient truth that doesn't abide by any laws of human society. As if the sacral ancient heritage is translated into the language of contemporary art and is later embodied in a wooden figure-symbol.

However, just like ancient gods once created people from clay and destroyed them afterwards, Malyshko reserves the right to stop. Will the clay be transformed into the wood? Will his ideas expand further? Even the sculptor doesn't know the answer jet: "As for me, it's not enough to use only wood or clay. My primary material is the world and myself in it. Later on everything is casted in the material, which I treasure as fondly as my soul."

Olena Yegorushkina