Sunken with the crown - Julia Kiryanova
Each tapestry of Julia Kiryanova is a spiritual journey, a ritual, a ceremony of transformation, filled with mythological characters, depicting an 'unconditional state of mind' in which the lines between reality and fantasy intertwine. Her work is about internal and external conflicts, contradictions.
Having the ability to be open to our surroundings and being touched by them, makes our spiritual and emotional life rich, but makes us also vulnerable. Where the consciousness interconnects with the subconsciousness, there’s a potential power that is unexplainable. We can rise above ourselves, but it also can be frightening, representing our fears. It is a dichotomy. How it supports and frightens us. It's a spiritual craftsmanship, unfolding the powers that can be. You need a connection with your past, your ancestors, relying on tradition.
Work of Julia and its aesthetics is inspired by traditional techniques of painting and tapestries, themes of spirituality, gender, race, mythology, and the unconditional state of mind. The main characters of her work are mythological animals, half humans-half animals, spirits. She repeatedly uses the naked human body based on equality by presenting one selves’ fragility. Becoming naked literally presents stripping of all social layers and aims at deconstructing social behaviours, securities and ?cultural certainties. What stays is the beauty of nudity; the essence of being.
The initial attraction to create tufting work was influenced by reconnecting with and exploring Kiryanova’s Slavic roots.? Textile craft is for her closely related to the habit in Slavic countries of hanging tapestry on the walls for the reason of heat isolation. It functions as a female womb which isolates from sound and spends warmth and therefore creates the feeling of security, comfort and safety gender. The atmosphere of feeling safe is what she is aiming for.
I'm not here for the moment - C. A. Wertheim
Who, as a child, didn’t play hide-and-seek? You imagined to have found the perfect hiding-place behind a curtain, but your feet are still visible and soon you are discovered.
In the last decades, C. A. Wertheim has mainly made self-portraits in many and various styles, using very different materials. However, in her recent work her face has disappeared.
She is, as it were, more or less hiding, although still unmistakably present in her paintings of interiors and ‘plant portraits’.
The first lock down, when everyone was recommended to work from home, was not a problem for her, having her own studio where she is living. On the contrary, working with less pressure gave her the peace of mind to fully concentrate on 'classic' painting with oil and sand on canvas and drawing with Indian ink on paper.
However, now everyone has to deal with restrictive measures against COVID-19 for the third year on a row, and because of increasing public resistance, this relative tranquility has somewhat gone.
Because of her side-job as a postman in the center of Amsterdam she was caught up a few times in demonstrations against the government measures regarding the virus. Especially, some activists making comparisons between the current situation and the Second World War, she experienced as particularly shocking and disgusting.
Moreover, aging and the loss of beloved ones from her environment, has given her work a slightly gloomy undertone, even though it still looks playful and full of self-relativity. After all, who doesn’t have to deal with sadness, loss, mortality, uncertainty, and fear?