Kyiv. Ya Gallery

Full Room

Iurii Denysenkov

10.08.2022 – 10.09.2022

Iurii Denysenkov

I have dedicated my last two years to the topic of memory. It has all started with a research of my own family archive and artifacts directly related to my life story and the history of my family. The first works of Full Room project were created in 2021. A table feast as a symbol of inseparability of time and generations was their main theme.


Exhibition Kyiv Ya Gallery

White flare on the tablecloth,

Faces are out of focus.

And it's all at once so far and close,

Bitter and joyful momentarily, seconds before the flash…

A. Dudchenko

I have dedicated my last two years to the topic of memory. It has all started with a research of my own family archive and artifacts directly related to my life story and the history of my family. The first works of Full Room project were created in 2021. A table feast as a symbol of inseparability of time and generations was their main theme.

On digging deeper into the family archive, I noticed that many photos portrayed this very scene — the family at the table. It has always been dynamic in time: participants, circumstances, interiors — everything has been changing, except for the table.

I see this object as a metaphor. The table unites, gathers people around itself on different occasions: quiet get-togethers, loud holidays or mournful, commemorative dates. The table unites in invariability and longevity of the ritual. The table is a throne, philosophy and metaphysics at the same time.

The optic has changed for a year of working on Full Room project. The war changes everyone and everything. The works have acquired a new meaning. The war is destruction of not only material things. It devaluates, sometimes transforms and sometimes destroys the essentials. Today we have to break off with family comfort and traditions. The sacred ritual is devoured by chaos which becomes dominant in our reality. The metahistorical disaster is inevitably threatening. The very memory is distorted, erased, faded away and forced out by the bright flashes of the horrors of war.

This project is divided into two parts: table feasts and the invasion. A clear, recognizable routine is interrupted by the crudeness of the circumstances that have been unknown until recently. Images are destroyed, burnt down and worn out like human memories and lives. The memory pushes out the episodes of past happiness like an illusionary hope. The color of rust and coal fills in the space, and the clarity is lost under the pressure of new reality. The condition of its formation is a peremptory literal destruction of the history landscape where the mosaic of memories is scattered in time. The fragility of this landscape is also underlined by the materials used in the project: glued paper and coal.

However, time remains invariably present — it now transforms from an abstract canvas into a physical substance of layers of memory and reality. Full Room is a project about an infinite circle of life impressed in time. And someday we will see again a table, a white cloth and a room full of people…

Yurii Denysenkov


Author

Was born in 1985. Lives and works in Kyiv.

In 2010 graduated from the Faculty of Scenography of the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture.

Participant of young art program "Genofond", organized by Pavlo Gudimov's Ya Gallery Art Center.

The artist works in various techniques, uses various materials.

The main theme of his works is fear and loneliness of a person's existence in an urban society.

Author's exhibitions
12.07.2017 – 19.08.2017
Exhibition Kyiv Ya Gallery Art Center
07.08.2013 – 02.09.2013
Exhibition Kyiv Ya Gallery Art Center