Voloshyn Gallery proudly presents Maria Sulymenko’s solo exhibition at Art Cologne. The project includes both the artist's earlier works and new pieces created specifically for the art fair. In her watercolors, Maria Sulymenko manages to express abstract concepts through images: in this absurdist atmosphere, something truly existential is happening. The sceneries are barely inhabited. Nameless figures appearing in them are mainly alone, sometimes in groups of two or three. They are not characters as such, rather just beings. Environments surrounding them refer more to the subconscious than to the familiar reality.

Every day, reality clashes upon us, making people interact with people, things with things, and vice versa. Such interdependent interaction takes place on a daily basis, and there is some mystery to this semi-automatic mutual impact, something not fully resolved, something that cannot be decisively comprehended once and for all. No matter how confident and unique "people wearing suits" might feel, meeting the real world always brings an element of chaos to their orderly existence, as life is not just multifaceted: sometimes it is clumsy, ridiculous and funny. No matter how smooth reality seems to be, it always goes beyond the picture of the world invented by "people wearing suits" driven by the desire to control and restrain everything around them.

– Maria Sulymenko

A few words have to be said about some details recurring in the paintings, such as elongated candles, animal skins, “unidentified objects”, certain artworks.

Whether it is a picture on a wall or a sculpture on a pedestal, they do not make places feel inhabitable. All rooms in the paintings are devoid of any homeliness and comfort, rather resembling large cold aquariums, in which awkward characters with brushed-up hair wearing formal suits are swimming instead of fish. Looking at Maria Sulymenko's watercolors, one cannot help noticing how people in general constantly strive to surround themselves with this senseless gloss, a plethora of things. Why? Perhaps because it calms them by providing a sense of belonging to a particular social group, releases them from the existential loneliness and the fear of desocialization.