MEETING POINT

The artists have been friends for a long time, but this is their first joint exhibition. The title of the project defines the uniqueness and symbolism of the event: as the intersection of the creative paths of two artists, their meeting point became the Imagine Point Gallery.

For this exhibition, Andrii Bludov has offered paintings from the "Urbanistics" project, initiated back in 2018, in which he "metaphorically touches upon the themes of space, structure, and labyrinth, while also proposing an analogy of the contemporary human worldview, and addresses the theme of the somewhat confused, even tangled consciousness of Homo sapiens."

The idea that "humans have sufficiently detached themselves from the natural world, creating their own embodied space of existence" has long intrigued the artist. And he constructs this space, his imaginary City, composed of "straight lines and angles in different perspectives" of remarkable artificial structures - captured on canvas in graphic drawings of postmodernist architecture, sometimes appearing unreal, futuristic-absurd.

And with these expressive, light-filled and pulsating, brightly "mad" in color picturesque forms and structures, at a certain point of highest tension, the metallic objects-installations, the "smokes" of Oleksii Sai, intersect and intersect.

About ten years ago, during the Maidan protests, Oleksii Sai began working on the series "Smokes":

"These are smokes.

Smokes from flash-bang grenades at the moment of explosion, when everyone nearby is deafened.

I started making them in the winter of 2014. I continue to make them from time to time, and now - but now, perhaps, these are not the same smokes, but some others - in any case, it's 'something solid that shouldn't be solid.'

Such series in art are called "open", they testify to the importance of a certain theme for the artist. Despite the breaks in time, the artist constantly returns to the theme as if to a deferred conversation about something extremely important.

But the return to the "smokes" is due to the tragic story of our present:
"I never wanted to parasitize on social themes, but when it's already happening - what can you do, you can't avoid it."

The jagged metal forms with "angular" curves (they are the ones that resemble puffs of smoke, that which "shouldn't be solid") of powerful cubist objects burst into the world of futuristic urbanism with grim realities of the present. Their silvery metallic surfaces contrast with the vibrant planes of the canvases. However, the geometric conciseness, sharp, distinct outlines of accumulations visually merge the installations and paintings.

What does a person feel trapped in the tangled labyrinths of structures during explosions, under the thick curtain of smoke?

And how does one see a way out for themselves?

Because there is always a way out, and tomorrow, despite everything, will come.

And in that tomorrow, urban landscapes with clear sculptural forms woven into them will be perceived quite differently - as an organic environment for the lives of future generations.

The meeting point of feelings and quests of two artists becomes the starting point for visions of the future.