April 5 – May 27
Dymchuk Gallery presents a solo exhibition by Dmitry Yevseev, a young artist from Odesa. The exhibition entitled Introspection features 11 paintings produced during the last two years.
This affirmation may seem contradictory, and the news about the death of the painting have a long history, but 1990s and 2000s can be described as a rejection of painting, both in the world and in Ukrainian art. Most artists found new ways to express themselves, and critics were talking about painting as an outdated medium that exhausted itself. However, in recent years, the death of painting is denied, and it is still early to speak that this medium has reached its limit.
Dmitry Yevseev, who also experimented with photography, is definitely an adherent of painting and an announcer of its returning in a new meaning.
In a series of chamber works, most of which are portraits, he captures the various states of his characters. The psychology of his works is indisputable and achieved with minimum details – simple in composition, ascetic in color, they focus on the emotions portrayed.
At the same time, the artist notes that even when he depicts another (several self-portraits are presented at the exhibition), he does not try to penetrate into their inner world, but rather continues to study himself and seeks out the expression of something external in relation to the portrait. His characters, who are in fact only different faces of the one, emerge from the emptiness, thereby rejecting the usual for the portrait genre the ability to “read” a portrait through the surroundings of the person. It becomes absolutely unimportant who is depicted, it’s just a Human, a certain generalization, not the unification and erasure of differences, but rather the abstraction of details in order to concentrate on the fundamental principles of human existence. The works that make up Introspections obviously can be interpreted through existentialism, but they also can be contemplated regardless of philosophical maxims at the emotional and empathetic level.