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Maria Sulymenko THE GLASS WORLD OF PEOPLE AND THINGS...
25 may —
02 July 2017

selected works

about

Voloshyn Gallery presents the exhibition The Glass World of People and Things… by Maria Sulymenko, the artist, whose name is new to exhibition visitors. It is little wonder, because Maria Sulymenko is the author of Ukrainian origin, who now lives in Germany, and this exhibition is her first project at the homeland. Some of the artist’s artworks have already been demonstrated by Voloshyn Gallery in the United States at the art show SCOPE Miami Beach 2016.

The watercolor paintings of Maria Sulymenko represented at the exhibition The Glass World of People and Things…are comprised both simplicity and laconism, and at the same time, something that is hold an audience spellbound. Everything that happens like slow-motion or frozen in space pictures, and is immersed in an atmosphere of transparent grey air.

The artist says that she has neither set special goals, nor invented the concepts; her artworks are not just about what she sees, but also about the way she sees the world. First of all, they are full of aspiration to convey this atmosphere to the visitor. “I always love those “office” premises, where everything is strange, mysterious, and empty, where their own rituals, hierarchies are taken place there. What is happening there? What are they doing there? Probably they laze away their time or perhaps plan to capture the universe. I have the reverential feelings to my characters though they are not the central ones; they aren’t the particular real people, but rather impersonal ones, however, it's a pleasure for me to think that they have their private lives outside the picture,” says Maria Sulymenko.

The author delicately and perfectly collect all the details, but at the same time, the viewer keeps the sense of improvisation and ease. The characters of the Maria’s paintings are out of the peculiar era, and placed in a rather nominally, sometimes naive, designated environment, images of which refer to the subconscious, rather than explicit realm. In this absurdity atmosphere there is happening something a very existential. One can ask, whether the characters of Sulymenko’s paintings are the ordinary people, who are floating downstream, or they are nonconformists, who deliberately chose solitude?

A few words it has to be said about the articles, cruising from one painting to the other one, such as elongated candles, skins of killed animals, “unidentified things”, certain artworks. Whether it is a picture on the wall or a sculpture on a pedestal – all these things do not evoke sensation of a habitable place. The premises are devoid of homeyness and comfort, and rather resemble the cold spacious aquariums, in which instead of fish there awkward characters with brushed-up hair wearing formal suits are swimming.

When you are looking at The Glass World of People and Things…, it comes to mind that people, on the whole, are constantly striving to surround themselves with all this senseless glair, plethora of things. Why? Perhaps, it calms, gives a sense of belonging to a particular social group, releases from the existential loneliness and the fear of desocialisation.

Maria Sulymenko was born in 1981 in Kyiv, Ukraine, in a family of artists. She graduated from the Taras Shevchenko State Art School. Then Maria went to get the higher education in Germany and entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart (Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart), where placed high emphasis on the sculptural arts and painting. On graduating the academy, the artist went into further academic study at the Hessen State University of Art and Design in Offenbach am Main (Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach am Main), where focused her attention on graphic design. She was taught by the celebrated ATAK (Georg Barber) and Eike König. It was in Germany, where Maria clearly defined her artistic style and created a lot of paintings on paper and canvas.At the moment the artist lives and works in Fridingenan der Donau and Berlin.