Voloshyn Gallery presents a solo project by Ukrainian artist Sana Shahmuradova Tanska at viennacontemporary 2024. This project will showcase her latest works, which delve into the profound intersections of memory, trauma, and time. Her paintings evoke a deeply emotional and contemplative response, capturing the complex realities of existence in a world marked by loss and change.
Sana Shahmuradova Tanska's work is an exploration of non-verbal experiences, where the conventional boundaries of place and time become fluid and blurred. These experiences compel her to search for symbols that can replace the deep wounds left by loss and destruction. Shahmuradova Tanska’s primary objective is to capture the emotional imprints of these events, presenting them as existentially vital knowledge that resonates within the context of both Ukrainian and global history.
"The war has forced me to see the world through a different lens," Shahmuradova Tanska says. "I’m constantly searching for a way to articulate the unspeakable—those feelings and experiences that words can’t capture. My art is an attempt to give form to the void left by loss, to make visible the scars that history imprints on our souls."
Her paintings are rooted in the space of dreams and their recollection, creating a narrative where the past and present collide and intermingle. The melancholic aesthetics of her works, characterized by half-formed images and repeated motifs, suggest a sense of weariness and exhaustion—an emotional response to the ongoing war. The tones on her canvases, often camouflaged as mold, evoke the slow decay and erosion of time, while the presence of silt and water in her imagery takes on a symbolic role, representing both the weight of memory and the fluidity of trauma.
"These paintings are like silted-up rivers," she explains. "They carry the voices of tens of thousands who have been silenced. In these works, I see them all merging into a chorus, sometimes drowning in pain, sometimes reaching for something stable, something to hold onto in the chaos."
Through her daily practice in the studio, Shahmuradova Tanska reflects on mourning, the cyclical nature of violence, and the process of coming to terms with survival. Her works are an ongoing dialogue between past and present, where the remnants of previous eras and contexts spontaneously emerge. Some images recall the worn frescoes of ancient cathedrals, while others evoke the mystical surrealism of Remedios Varo or the enigmatic imagery of Magritte’s wrapped faces.
"My paintings are a conversation with history," Shahmuradova Tanska says. "They’re an attempt to transcend the boundaries of time and place, to reach out to the past and the future simultaneously. It’s about creating a space where different temporalities coexist, where memory is not linear but cyclical, constantly folding back on itself."
In her recent works, Shahmuradova Tanska explores the tension between the impossibility of creation in moments of extreme emotion and an idealistic belief in the viewer’s ability to empathize and connect. Her art is a testament to the power of voice and light—an invitation to the audience to listen to the stories that lie beneath the surface of what we see. "We don’t become spiritually connected overnight," she reflects. "It’s a process that requires us to use our voices, to speak out and let the voices inside us be heard. Only then can we begin to find freedom, to heal from the wounds of the past."
Quotes:
"We must imagine in order to remember." – Georges Didi-Huberman, Images in Spite of Everything
OPENING HOURS
Thursday, 12 September 2024
Preview: 12:00 am – 9:00 pm (VIP Pass only)
Vernissage: 4 pm – 9:00 pm (VIP & Vernissage Pass only)
Friday, 13 September & Saturday, 14 September 2024
11:00 am – 7:00 pm
Sunday, 15 September 2024
11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Trabrennstraße 7, 1020 Vienna