09 MARCH 2019 – 29 MARCH 2019

OPENING
MARCH 8, 7-9 pm  

For this exhibition the artist has been invited to make a work with specifications of her choosing. The result is an immense and almost theatrical contemplation on myth and allegory. The space of the gallery has been transformed and fragmented by a triptych composed of four canvases and two canvased floor panels. This monochrome painting echoes themes of the divine and a belittled subjectivity; apparitions slip into nothingness while still remaining present. Its play with allusions to the symbolic contributes to an overall suspicion of knowing what is unknown.

"There is a story of redemption told in the midst of unspeakable atrocity; a whisper at best but not without the grandeur to make good on a history of suffering. As the winds blew unilaterally toward fire and brimstone, the apologists clamored victory, a triumphal procession upon what was simply the case. All that is over, but not without some caveat.

Imagine for a moment that the gusts of such progress ceased into a sea of calm, although equally ominous. The calm after the storm is but the continuation of ruination by other means. A new era, opening its eyes to an enveloping abyss, one without direction or purpose, clings to the same promises of every new election cycle, itself the maniacal derivative of what the previous century elevated as an eminently rational rhythm. Here the clouds break but with nothing on offer. There is light, but its presence suggests that the worse is yet to come. Immense underwater waves ebb and flow in silence while speaking into the cold and dark abyss we find ourselves.

Space is no longer an intuition but begins to close in, surrounding and swaddling this faded Winged Victory of Samothrace. It is a story no longer contained in the triptych or panel painting, which merely dreamed of covering the surfaces of the world over. Dispelling allegory or myth, it is a chapel without consecration whose scarcity of marble does not prevent its imitation. Organic patterns and purpose are here but a faded memory, as is the faith in technical possibility touted by the social democrats of yesteryear. What remains are only nominal voices in a chasm for which an echo masquerades as conversation. 

Were Klee’s Angelus Novus to flutter off Benjamin’s ninth thesis and land within his eleventh, we’d have an impression of the only paradise we deserve".

Veronika Russell was born in Moscow in 1984 where she graduated from The State College of Art in 2005 with a diploma in set design. She also holds a ‘Meisterschülerin’ degree from Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main from 2015. Her works have been exhibited in Russia, Germany and the United States. Veronika Russell lives and works in London.

numer02 gallery 126 Blurton road E50NH London
Thursday 6-8pm or by appointment only.
RSVP numer02gardenshed@gmail.com