Exhibition by Yulia Agenosova "Deja Vu" Automatic translate

On October 9, the Pro Art`s gallery will open a personal exhibition of Yulia Agenosova "Deja Vu" * - the next part of a large statement about the fundamental categories of human existence, where the artist’s philosophical worldview acquires artistic matter.

In her work, Yulia Agenosova deals with the intersection of the inner and outer worlds of a person. The artist’s meditative symbolic language, on the verge of abstract and objective, in each created series touches deeply personal, intimate, almost intimate spheres and illuminates aspects of human life in different ways.

The new project continues the development of the theme of metaphysics in art and the study of representativeness in abstract painting. Exquisitely involving the unconscious in perception, the artist creates a situation of uncertainty, when at first glance a seemingly abstract composition, upon closer examination, turns out to be a reliably reproduced image of a real object - human hair. Here the power of the optical impact of artistic matter and color is so great that what is happening is felt at the bodily level, the content becomes tangible, acquires its living "flesh".

* Deja vu - (fr. Deja vu) "already seen" - a mental state in which a person feels that he has already been in a similar situation or in a similar place, however, experiencing such a feeling, usually cannot, despite its strength, associate this "memory" with a specific moment from the past. Since déjà vu cannot be induced artificially, its scientific research is difficult.

The exhibition brings together in the exposition two series of paintings and sculptures created in 2021 - Herbs of the Garden of Eden and Reminiscences.

Series "Herbs of the Garden of Eden". Just one phrase belonging to the protagonist of Marcel Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time, in which he so poetically compared the images of the Garden of Eden and the hair of the woman he dreamed about, inspired the artist to create a series. This unexpected comparison is seen as a manifestation of "French passion" - mania and courage to put yourself entirely at stake. Or what the French call s’engager - to get involved. But to get involved is not the mind, but to get involved in the sense - to put your life on the line, to risk yourself. You are authentically present because you have put yourself at stake. And only in the light of this certainty - everything that can be compared, correlated with it - can receive a sign of truth.

The second theme of the series, like that of Proust’s novel, is the theme of joy and a journey worth taking, although it bears the imprint of a mortal journey. The author of the project shares with the viewer his own feeling that without living in the shadow of the symbol of death, nothing can be understood and nothing can really be experienced.

"Reminiscences" series. The authorship of the ancient Greek philosophical term should be attributed to Plato. The concept was used in Plato’s doctrine of the nature of the human soul and the doctrine of ideas. Plato believed that for the soul, intuition serves as a tool for collecting information about the other world. This term is found in three main works of Plato. In Meno, Socrates discusses the general kinship of objects to each other, thanks to which one can literally remember everything and find everything. The Platonic concept, put into the mouth of Socrates, is that the mechanism of remembering opens up access to judgments about causes. In Phaedo, the dogma is repeated that knowledge is in fact recollection. And in Phaedrus, Plato postulates reminiscence (recollection) as initiation into the sacraments and an approach to spiritual perfection.The earliest reminiscences should be recognized as silhouettes, proportions and plots of ancient rock carvings - petroglyphs.

The "Reminiscences" series, using the methods of depicting ancient artists through mythological images and religious subjects, immerses the viewer in the world of images-reminiscences, reminiscences of another world, in which, perhaps, he has never been. These sources inspired artists of the past, and today the connection of these archetypes with the real life of a modern person is the subject of the artist’s reflection.

Painting technique. Julia Agenosova mainly works in the oil painting technique. The author chooses a layer-by-layer technique for making the image, striving to ensure that through each layer, which is pasty (not glazed), the previous layer shines through, thereby affecting the "sound" of the previous one. In one work, such layers can be from 3 to 10. Accumulating, they create a feeling not of painted depth, but real, physical, caused simply by mechanical build-up of the paint layer. The artist considers this important, because it makes the painting akin to life, which is also multi-layered - day after day, year after year, and yesterday makes itself felt in today.

Hair. The material for the image is new, complex, causing conflicting feelings: from disgust to a feeling of deep intimacy and involvement in something very personal. For an artist, this material is endowed with special properties - it keeps the secret associated with memory. There is a scientific basis for this - human DNA, and MYSTICAL - in all cultures of the world it is human hair that is involved in various cults and rituals. Beliefs and superstitions are associated with them. For an artist, such a meaningful side of the material makes him completely unique and endowed with additional energy. Julia draws hair from life, placing a bun of hair in a file on a sheet of white paper so that it becomes flat. This is a fundamental point: it is important for an artist to sketch them exactly as they lay, to explore the form that nature has created. Part of the work is done on a light background - shades,close to skin color. The other part - on the dark - is the idea of ​​inner light. Like night and day. The artist paints hair that is no longer part of the human image. In ordinary life, this is something that immediately goes to the trash, accompanied by feelings of disgust, especially if it is someone else’s hair. The artist suggests that this is due to the fact that a person usually does not think about the moment of his death - these thoughts are unbearable to him, he avoids them. It is immediately obvious that, seeing a lock of his hair that has fallen out, he is personally confronted with the inevitability of the inevitability of his death. They fall out forever, they can not be returned back, how not to return back time, not a single minute of our life.which immediately goes to the trash, accompanied by feelings of disgust, especially if it is someone else’s hair. The artist assumes that this is due to the fact that a person usually does not think about the moment of his death - these thoughts are unbearable to him, he avoids them. It is immediately obvious that, seeing a lock of his hair that has fallen out, he is personally confronted with the inevitability of the inevitability of his death. They fall out forever, they can not be returned back, how not to return back time, not a single minute of our life.which immediately goes to the trash, accompanied by feelings of disgust, especially if it is someone else’s hair. The artist suggests that this is due to the fact that a person usually does not think about the moment of his death - these thoughts are unbearable to him, he avoids them. It is immediately obvious that, seeing a lock of his hair that has fallen out, he is personally confronted with the inevitability of the inevitability of his death. They fall out forever, they can not be returned back, how not to return back time, not a single minute of our life.They fall out forever, they can not be returned back, how not to return back time, not a single minute of our life.They fall out forever, they can not be returned back, how not to return back time, not a single minute of our life.

Petroglyphs. The artist calls his works petroglyphs (in the modern vocabulary - scratchboard, scratch), since they are made using the technique of scratching on raw paint, so similar to what ancient artists did when scratching an image on a stone, and to what we know as rock painting. This method of image allows you to show all the extraordinary expressiveness of hair as a material, not in its mass, as hair is usually depicted as a "shock", but to focus on the plasticity of each individual hair, demonstrating its grace, plasticity and dynamism.

Sculpture. Recently, Yulia Agenosova has been engaged in sculpture, using mainly wire, stone (concrete) and wood. The object itself is made of a wire that vaguely resembles a bun, a skein of hair. Thus, the painting of recent years has acquired three dimensions. The choice of material is not accidental - the artist is fascinated by the unexpected simplicity of this material and its expressiveness. Being soft and ductile to a certain extent, the wire is able to keep its shape. At the same time, she has the quality of a living thing - the ability to change. This is a distinctive feature of the work - it always remains unfinished, there is always a risk that some element will change the form, and hence the content.

About the artist

Julia Agenosova was born in Kaluga. She graduated from the graphic arts faculty and the faculty of practical psychology of the Smolensk State Pedagogical University.

Member of the Creative Union of Artists of Russia and the International Federation of Artists since 2010. Member of the Academy of Analytical Arts (AKANIS) since 2012. Teacher of abstract art at the Tantum Art`s Foundation and the Innovative Cultural Center (Kaluga, Russia).

Participant and laureate of city, regional, regional and international exhibitions and competitions.

In 2019 she entered the list of the best contemporary artists in Russia (Arteex). Works are in private and public collections in Russia and abroad. Lives and works in Kaluga.

Having received an artistic pedagogical education, Yulia Agenosova is fond of psychology, receives a specialty of a practical psychologist and has been working for 7 years in a psychiatric clinic as a clinical psychologist. This had a huge impact on the development of the artist’s personality, enriched him with a unique experience of immersion in the very depths of the human psyche, with all its passions and contradictions. This direct contact with the genuine manifestation of the human soul at its most difficult moment - the moment of suffering, taught the artist not to be afraid to touch on the most difficult topics in art: the author reflects on the fear of loss, the meaning and meaninglessness of life, pain from closeness with another person, loneliness, struggle with a feeling of one’s own imperfection and imperfection of the world, a lack of love and understanding…

All this is directly reflected in the works of Yulia Agenosova - each series is filled with very personal content and at the same time concerns what worries all people, regardless of their social status, nationality, and gender. This common "collective unconscious" is the subject of the author’s reflection.