PARA(SITE)DE
Found photograph and acrylic paint
2019
This work made using a found image and acrylic paint is exploring the theme of propaganda and its effect on people. The photograph vividly depicts the uniformity of the marching young men, whose appearance and athleticism were used in the USSR as an idealized symbol of the idea of the “New Citizen”. In this way, it’s an image of the totalitarian regimes’ desire to produce uniformity through ideological thinking. But it can also refer to any party or institution using established ideas to create intellectual conformism. The red colour of the thread refers to biomorphic imagery, like parasites, blood vessels or intestines. Also, it’s the colour of the Soviet flag. Such altering of a found photograph resembles the approaches the Surrealists employed in the 1920s-30s, who have explored the notion of the uncanny – making the familiar strange and disturbing.
Pencil drawing on found photographs, some of which by Hilla and Bernd Becher, Lev Borodulin and Vadim Opalin
The Worm is a creature that resembles an intestine, blood vessel, animated industrial pipe and a worm. The image is open to interpretations. It can be either uncanny nightmare, anxiety, quintessential, unambiguous evil, physical pain, propaganda. Red colour is frequently associated with far left or right ideologies, states and parties, which leads me to associating it with a totalitarian machine. The Worm is supposed to be an antihero of the narrative.
