‘Moon Mages’, the new exhibition by Russian artist Sveta Yavorsky. Inspired by and dedicated to the twelve moons of the solar system, the paintings in Yavorsky!s collection are named after mythological heroes and literary figures as in the Western classical tradition.

Where?

Hay Hill Gallery, 5a Cork Street, W1S 3NY

When?

6th February – 3rd March 2012

How Much?

Admission is free to the general public.

A collection of literary eponyms, the idea of an allegorical connection between the name and the painting is merely suggestive. As Galileo Galilei once wrote, “Names and attributes must be accommodated to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names, since things come first and names afterwards.! Yavorsky!s latest paintings encourage us to reassess our premeditated assumptions that there is a connection between the name of the subject and the subject itself. In the case of ‘Ganymede’, in Greek mythology the Trojan prince of the same name was abducted by a bird, but as with the Galilean moon, any connections between the name and the subject are purely coincidental. All conjecture regarding the inner meaning of the painting is in the eye of the beholder.

Sveta Yavorsky is a figurative artist who works in the contemporary British trend. Her work rejects academic figurative representation and embraces the semi-abstract method of composition that Malevich termed the “additional element! of painting. Yavorsky scatters particles of local colour with well-defined contours to form purely abstract clusters of elements. These bursts of colour collect into patterned layers and are combined until their superposition is balanced on entirely abstract terms. The human tendency to seek patterns in random data and find figurative fulfilment is subtly emphasised by the artist. However, Yavorsky diverts this process as her paintings reach a closure before the figurative is able to become literal. Yavorsky offers us abstract patterns of colour that merely resemble a spectral figure and so her paintings remain vibrant in a way only found in an abstract composition. She combines and contrasts the spectral allegorical figures with images of animals blended into the background by their realistically rendered camouflage. Through this process Yavorsky achieves a collection of paintings that are a complex and contemporary mixture of the figurative and the abstract.

Author: Hayhill

Hay Hill Gallery represents a number of internationally recognised contemporary and artists. Its exhibition program includes Masters such as A. Warhol, M. F. Husain, E. Munch and a selection of contemporary artists from around the globe.