Platform: Yulia Iosilzon
from 1 May 2022
Yulia Iosilzon’s paintings are unfolding narratives of human-animal metamorphosis, as well as depictions of everyday life and social protests. Encompassing painting and ceramics, the artist’s work draws on Jewish iconography—part of the artist’s heritage—as well as childhood cartoons, representations of paradise, mythological tales and prison tattoos. Iosilzon’s figurative works on stretched silk are portals into vivid dreamlike worlds with roots in both ancient mythologies and contemporary social concerns.
These dreamlike paintings employs fluid and calligraphic lines to explore themes of eternal love and loss. These works are part of a series by the artist that is inspired by both Edgar Allan Poe’s “Eleonora,” and The Catax, a 1929 painting by Francis Picabia. These works create a bridge between poetry and painting, exploring both visual storytelling and personal experiences.
Iosilzon's works establish internal rhythms through the inclusion of repeated details such as waving hair or the undulating bodies of snakes. These paintings feature smooth and gleaming surfaces and expressive human faces that frequently emerge from landscapes or peer through swathes of vegetation to connect with viewers. Iosilzon’s works frequently have a cheery and cartoonish appeal, while simultaneously harboring a subtle air of menace. These compositions offer reflections on humankind, expressing concern for rampant consumption, pollution and social instability. From crisis to paradise, from banal to profound, Iosilzon’s practice is concerned with the narratives we share to make sense of the world around us.
About these works, Iosilzon says: "The paint application process with substantial pre-planned layering was made to create fresco-like fragments of action. The fictional atmospheres are enhanced with vibrant hyperbolized movements in almost frozen-like surroundings: big wig hair, floating bubbles, human-sized caterpillars.”