"IT'S ALL ABOUT THE GIRLS" at HAKI gallery, TaRTU, Estonia, 04.04-04.05.2024
How to capture complexity?
Maria Lapteva Sidljarevich It’s All About the Girls at Haki gallery in Tartu
Piret Põldver
Maria Lapteva Sidljarevich’ exhibition It’s All About the Girls first strikes with its colours, then the surrealism and figures whose faces are hidden, distorted, or painted black. The title guides the viewer towards an interpretation through girls. But, for me, something universally human emerges – the complexity within a person that with difficulty and little bit uneasily relates to the world and others.
My humanities-oriented brain, accustomed to search for interpretations, immediately seeks symbols that meanings could be hooked to. But it seems that the artist provokes a different kind of communication. She has not tried to paint symbols that tell the familiar narratives, but has filled the canvases with her own voice, her subjective sense of images. Even if I do not know exactly what the artist had in mind, it’s still possible to recognise some of it, because the world that she depicts is consistent.
It's possible that I was handed a thread of interpretation by the artist herself, as she told me a story of one of the paintings. Healing With Music depicts two girlfriends, sitting. One is playing a guitar, the other has injured her arm in an accident. One friend is trying to soothe the other by playing a pretty tune on her instrument. A bird sits on her shoulder, but she has tied bird’s beak shut so that it cannot sing. Has she thus eradicated the chance for anyone else to comfort her friend? She alone is providing the music. What is more important, the act of consoling itself or the fact that only she can provide solace? Here, the desire to do a kindness and the craving to be in the spotlight are intertwined - there is warmth and chill in the same instant. One may have many conflicting intentions in any given moment; the desire to be moral and intimate, to be together and distant, to be helpful but outshine the others. I feel that Lapteva Sidljarevich has captured these contradictions on canvas. Black birds hold some girls captive; expressions frozen in time; facial features wiped away; wings and legs of flies sprout out of girls backs; a boy trying to impress a girl with a dead beaver that he has killed.
One of the most captivating symbols in this exhibition is the threads connecting people. These may be tight strands of yarns forming a thick rushing waterfall between two individuals. The fibers all so fragile that they can break at any moment. Intimacy is indeed fragile. Closeness draws you in, it is essential, it is desirable. However, when you get too close to another, it can be daunting, terrifying, confusing. Perhaps then you draw back, but your ties remain. With some encounters, these threads are very long, fine and sparse, with others, they are dense, short and curly. Threads get tangled, and with others, some fall off, break, scatter in the wind. This is what Lapteva Sidljarevich’ paintings communicate to me. But does art, especially the flowing surrealistic images, invite introspection? Perhaps by viewing these works I can learn something more about myself.
Colours in addition to symbols convey this message. The exhibition is carried by strong contrasts, both in images and colours. For example, in the painting “Lucky Bug” black, white, and pink all seem to be opposites of each other. Pink might carry even stronger cultural code as the opposite of black; black being the symbol of depth and gothic, pink having the meaning of frivolity and modern superficiality. There are two girls in the painting, holding hands, flowing energy between their faces, connectedness, intimacy. The colours bring out the contrast, but the image drawn between their faces emphasises their closeness despite the difference. Lapteva Sidljarevich’s use of colour is aesthetically engaging, powerful, startling, and evocative.
The exhibition is accompanied by a soundscape. The voice of little girl is counting numbers from one to a hundred. She counts slowly and carefully. When she makes a mistake, she starts over. Gallerist Silja Truus offered that this is perhaps the essence of being a girl – you do what you are asked to. Even if it’s just reciting numbers, you are eager, good, diligent, and may never ask what the point of it is. A girl can live her whole life like this, counting numbers because she was asked.
The characters in these paintings are standing in this difficulty. They are facing us with their dark faces. Static, they are caught in the moment, holding this complexity, this impenetrability.
Maria Lapteva Sidljarevich It’s All About the Girls at Haki gallery in Tartu
Piret Põldver
Maria Lapteva Sidljarevich’ exhibition It’s All About the Girls first strikes with its colours, then the surrealism and figures whose faces are hidden, distorted, or painted black. The title guides the viewer towards an interpretation through girls. But, for me, something universally human emerges – the complexity within a person that with difficulty and little bit uneasily relates to the world and others.
My humanities-oriented brain, accustomed to search for interpretations, immediately seeks symbols that meanings could be hooked to. But it seems that the artist provokes a different kind of communication. She has not tried to paint symbols that tell the familiar narratives, but has filled the canvases with her own voice, her subjective sense of images. Even if I do not know exactly what the artist had in mind, it’s still possible to recognise some of it, because the world that she depicts is consistent.
It's possible that I was handed a thread of interpretation by the artist herself, as she told me a story of one of the paintings. Healing With Music depicts two girlfriends, sitting. One is playing a guitar, the other has injured her arm in an accident. One friend is trying to soothe the other by playing a pretty tune on her instrument. A bird sits on her shoulder, but she has tied bird’s beak shut so that it cannot sing. Has she thus eradicated the chance for anyone else to comfort her friend? She alone is providing the music. What is more important, the act of consoling itself or the fact that only she can provide solace? Here, the desire to do a kindness and the craving to be in the spotlight are intertwined - there is warmth and chill in the same instant. One may have many conflicting intentions in any given moment; the desire to be moral and intimate, to be together and distant, to be helpful but outshine the others. I feel that Lapteva Sidljarevich has captured these contradictions on canvas. Black birds hold some girls captive; expressions frozen in time; facial features wiped away; wings and legs of flies sprout out of girls backs; a boy trying to impress a girl with a dead beaver that he has killed.
One of the most captivating symbols in this exhibition is the threads connecting people. These may be tight strands of yarns forming a thick rushing waterfall between two individuals. The fibers all so fragile that they can break at any moment. Intimacy is indeed fragile. Closeness draws you in, it is essential, it is desirable. However, when you get too close to another, it can be daunting, terrifying, confusing. Perhaps then you draw back, but your ties remain. With some encounters, these threads are very long, fine and sparse, with others, they are dense, short and curly. Threads get tangled, and with others, some fall off, break, scatter in the wind. This is what Lapteva Sidljarevich’ paintings communicate to me. But does art, especially the flowing surrealistic images, invite introspection? Perhaps by viewing these works I can learn something more about myself.
Colours in addition to symbols convey this message. The exhibition is carried by strong contrasts, both in images and colours. For example, in the painting “Lucky Bug” black, white, and pink all seem to be opposites of each other. Pink might carry even stronger cultural code as the opposite of black; black being the symbol of depth and gothic, pink having the meaning of frivolity and modern superficiality. There are two girls in the painting, holding hands, flowing energy between their faces, connectedness, intimacy. The colours bring out the contrast, but the image drawn between their faces emphasises their closeness despite the difference. Lapteva Sidljarevich’s use of colour is aesthetically engaging, powerful, startling, and evocative.
The exhibition is accompanied by a soundscape. The voice of little girl is counting numbers from one to a hundred. She counts slowly and carefully. When she makes a mistake, she starts over. Gallerist Silja Truus offered that this is perhaps the essence of being a girl – you do what you are asked to. Even if it’s just reciting numbers, you are eager, good, diligent, and may never ask what the point of it is. A girl can live her whole life like this, counting numbers because she was asked.
The characters in these paintings are standing in this difficulty. They are facing us with their dark faces. Static, they are caught in the moment, holding this complexity, this impenetrability.
"It's all about the girls" exhibition view at Haki gallery, Tartu. Photos by Eesi Raa