Wounded Eyes

Solo show by Sof'ya Shpurova

Curated by Daria Yartseva 

The installation was created with the paticipation of artists Pavel Ermakov and Taiya Kamyshan

If we abandon the reductive concept of «originality» and the myth of «Individual Genius»(perpetuated by Western-centric historical discourse) we can recognize Reproduction as a valid method of artistic creation. Artist Sof’ya Shpurova imbeds the «copypaste» method into her creative practice by reproducing her image into a series of doppelgangers and uncanny «doubles»-withdrawing and inserting images of the mundane into a deeply personal web of swarming cross-references. The serial Reproduction of the Self allows the artist to leave a unique imprint, a mark of the human experience.

During the production of «Wounded Eyes», сцена/szena gallery became an environment of co-authorship, a place of physical interaction and collective creation. 

In Sof’ya’s ‘Wounded eyes’ series, the artist's paintings are inserted into an immersive installation, creating multiple layers of the artist’s «psycho space». The textile installation built inside szena gallery alludes to an anthropoid shell, muslin fabrics covering the walls bandage a bleeding wound, the environment protects and guards Sof’ya’s intimate artistic world. The materiality of Oil Painting and textile creates a polyphony of material and object, a space that doesn’t try to appeal to its viewer, yet invites us in nonetheless. The journey the viewer makes through the exhibition space echoes an immersion into an intimate psychological space of the artist herself.

Automatic writing also plays an important role in Sof’ya’s creative practice. The artist withdraws intuitively chosen images and constitutes them into an archeological compilation of personal memory. Sof’ya’s multilayered Oil Painting approach combines various textures and techniques. Layers of imagery continuously interchange and overlap-the process of creation becoming the final destination of Sof’ya’s artistic production. A painting becomes a ghost, a shadow of its former self.

Daria Yartseva