Kyiv. Ya Gallery
A Little Bit of Sky
Andriy Sahaidakovskyy
04.09.2019 – 07.10.2019
Andriy Sagaidakovsky's every exhibition is like a new game the painter invites a viewer to play. To consider an unusual painting technique where a mat or some other unexpected material serves as a canvas, to learn the inscriptions that send us to both icons, traditional frescos of country temples or street murals — sometimes you need to go on an exciting quest to unravel a subtle irony of the painter's conception. But 'you must play in all seriousness like children do,' while letting loose your imagination and assuming that absolutely everything is allowed here and now, starting with the impossible. At the same time, the painter's artistic topics are still closely related to the present time, to this moment, to the life 'here and now.'
Andriy Sagaidakovsky's every exhibition is like a new game the painter invites a viewer to play. To consider an unusual painting technique where a mat or some other unexpected material serves as a canvas, to learn the inscriptions that send us to both icons, traditional frescos of country temples or street murals — sometimes you need to go on an exciting quest to unravel a subtle irony of the painter's conception. But 'you must play in all seriousness like children do,' while letting loose your imagination and assuming that absolutely everything is allowed here and now, starting with the impossible. At the same time, the painter's artistic topics are still closely related to the present time, to this moment, to the life 'here and now.'
The paradox underlies the interaction between the image and the text discourse that sometimes complements the image but more often contradicts it. It will be easy for an attentive viewer to recognize in A Boy Removing Splinters an allusion to the famous Roman bronze statute from the 1st century b.c., although it is still just a boy who removes a splinter – simple and complex at the same time. Floor Cloth is no less monumental — it looks like ancient curtains at first sight — and that is also a game and irony. What you should believe – your own eyes or painter's comments – is up to you.
Old mats in Sagaidakovsky's works this time become not only the basis for painting, but also compose the textile of the work itself, taking a leading role. Consisting of fragments like a mosaic, utilitarian objects create something new — a work of art with its own rhythm and rhyme of colors. And that is also the magic of Andriy Sagaidakovsky's art. The saturated black background makes one focus on depicted objects and simultaneously serves as the vacuum, emptiness that makes the unexpected transformations possible and is as valuable literally as gold. For the artist, the personal perception of the viewer who has witnessed the contradictions between the visuals and the signs is a secret ingredient and, probably, the crucial part of the exposition.
Oksana Ilzyna