Gretsky Dmitry / Katz Eugenia

“Terracotta Worriers” – 14 large-scale painting shows the spectator how important it is for the Teacher to be aware of his responsibility for future generations. This is an artistic performance, and as such, it communicates our thoughts about the sense of proportion, as well as a sensible compromise between individual and society. This project represents the quest for a visual interpretation of the individual freedom and sense of duty. We are using the classic technique of painting in this series, but never used brushes. Creation of a smooth surface for each image, through the special artistic method where the edge of the palm of the hand is used to even the surface of the painting allow me to reach a specially deep graduation of tonalities. The monumental painting portraits may be formally categorized in the genre of photorealism, as, for instance, portraits of the artists’ students in the series Terracotta worriers. Looking at the giant paintings one may remember the travels of Gulliver to Lilliputians and giants imagined by Swift. The idea that there is another world where everything has other dimensions, the correlation between scales in the human’s mind: the project appeals to the deep layers of our conscience. The play of words — the worrying person and the warrior, the soldier — is associated with the famous Chinese terracotta army and the kid’s mind which has been gradually modeling as from the clay material and finally takes its complete image. Gallery of Portraits - Youngsters unveil a powerful projection of images that everyone carries inside. Through manifold enlargement of Forms, you try to create significantly realistic and truthful images of your models on canvas. This pojection remains real as long as the viewer recognizes in it his or her own reflection, and as long both mutual trust and mutual interest between the viewer and these youngsters last, and as long as they stay similar, but not equal to their audience. These images exist in direct proportion to the amount of personal experience and knowledge that the viewer is inclined to bring into play, as if they tend to approach an ideal personality created by one’s own imagination. Then suddenly they outgrow the audience and become completely independent. Their eyes are glancing straight in front of them and the viewer is kept outside of their visual field. This mirrored up space of their glances creates a mysterious illusion of a seemingly endless perspective. Time passes, and Forms change, but the need to find one’s own way and draw up one’s own circle remains unchanged. And History repeats itself... Following Yuri Lotman’s quote, Time, as far as any portrait is concerned, is dynamic; its present is always full of reminiscences about the past and of anticipations of the future. A portrait is constantly balancing on the verge of artistic double-vision and a mystical reflection of reality.

The Terracotta worriers series entered the Long List of the Prize to Kandinsky and was for the first time at the exhibition of the Award Nominees in 2010. In 2012, the works from the series received the first prize for their participation in the Kress project, in the Art Museum of Georgia, USA.

Dmitry Gretsky

The practice of artists Dmitry Gretsky and Evgenia Katz over the years has been associated with the disclosure of the properties and possibilities of pencil drawing. The exhibition CARGO tale can be seen as several episodes of the serial story of Gretsky and Katz, interlocking several plots. The first develops from small outlined sheets that grow into multi-meter Curtains, the pattern is complemented by layers of metal mesh, the strokes or traces of their erasure grow into space with plastic clamps, black or white. The next reversal is a return from abstraction to figurative drawing, but already modified by the experience of creating images that cannot be considered. The barrier hall precedes or protects the entrance to the secret fishing area. Here, with the help of figurative graphics, the artists represent two characters engaged in selfless waste of time. Sitting on the deck of a motorboat, they try to sunbathe naked, cast a fishing rod, swing oars or invent other forms of leisure, but all their actions take place in an enclosed garage and look staged. A novel about confidential intimacy, sealed by rituals of deliberately ridiculous posing for each other, can also be read as an allegorical story about escape from reality, or as a reference book collecting information about various forms of displaced activity of people in a stressful situation. The obvious intimacy of the series is enhanced by the similarity of the characters to the authors, or rather, the artists use themselves as models.

Anastasia Kotyleva 

The age limit is 18+.

 Narcissus is an ongoing project that emerged from the idea of “self design” through self censorship. When talking about our identity, it is possible to assume that it can be easily rewritten, therefore we become more skeptical about an objective assessment of 

“ourselves” and in what form we may exist. Do we truly exist or it is just “an idea of ourselves” that exists?

 With this work Gretzky and Katz want to predict the future of the social media effect on oneself and create new myths around their identity through modern self-design tools such as social media. In the contemporary world our identity can be easily altered and manipulated. Through the use of a representational language of images, artists are trying to rewrite his personality for the public and, therefore, reinvent the sensation of the myth about Narcissus.

 Myth is a broad term. Myth – a word, a story, - is derived from ancient Greek. Initially, it was understood by the absolute totality of (sacred) values and philosophical truths confronting daily-empirical (profane) truths expressed by ordinary 'word'. Classical myth and modern myth can be two very contrasting things, but they have a similar principal, they are. However, myth provides us with something very human, and we continually seek answers from it. The classic version of the myth about Narcissus by Ovid is one of the examples of it.