Observing the body of landscape is sometimes similar to yearning of being able to painlessly transcend our own boundaries that separate us from external world. It is close to a child’s desire to have the ability to walk through the walls.
Still, on the other hand, the surface of the world has miraculous ability to convert the secret into accessible object, seducing the spectator with the opportunity to exchange invisible, obscure, unclear for visible, material, bodily.
Surface firmly separates relief of the outside world from chaos of the private. It is not even the skin itself, it is invisible insuperable boundary that corresponds to configuration of my skin. It is something ephemeral, similar to illusion of being able to touch the skin of the world, the covering of its tender (delicate?) flesh.
Attempt to materialize abstract, estranged ego. By turning this ego inside out and getting the world as a result, describe it, see it.
Vlada Ralko - Surface (2011 – 2013)
Dnipro
2011, 150 x 200, oil on canvas
Wave
2011, 150 x 200, oil on canvas
Mountain
2012, 150 x 200, oil on canvas
Mountain
2012, 110 x 160, oil on canvas
Sky
2012, 110 x 160, oil on canvas
Wave
2012, 200x150, oil on canvas
Motor and Sunset
2012, 200x150, oil on canvas
From the Surface series
2013, 30x42, watercolor, oil on paper
From the Surface series
2013, 30x42, watercolor, oil on paper
From the Surface series
2013, 30x42, watercolor, oil on paper
From the Surface series
2013, 30x42, watercolor, oil on paper
From the Surface series
2013, 30x42, watercolor, oil on paper
From the Surface series
2013, 30x42, watercolor, oil on paper
From the Surface series
2013, 30x42, watercolor, oil on paper
From the Surface series
2013, 30x42, watercolor, oil on paper
From the Surface series
2013, 20x25, oil on canvas
From the Surface series
2013, 20x25, oil on canvas
From the Surface series
2013, 20x25, oil on canvas
From the Surface series
2013, 20x25, oil on canvas
From the Surface series
2013, 20x25, oil on canvas
From the Surface series
2013, 20x25, oil on canvas
From the Surface series
2013, 20x25, oil on canvas
From the Surface series
2013, 20x25, marker
From the Surface series
2013, 20x25, oil on canvas
Turning to Japanese literary tradition, you can see that one of the favorite methods (approaches) is the description of nature as a metaphor to the character’s internal state. In other words landscape (outside world) as if appropriates character’s state acting as a visible analogy of the internal world.
I presented landscape as a body, literally changing the metaphor for reality. Hills, waves and sky became some organic structures, objectifying in this way the gaze directed at them.
