Canvas in canvas and what lies behind it: a (sur)realistic exhibition has opened in Moscow

A vernissage of contemporary artist Evgenia Lyasnikova, “Art in the Eye of the Beholder,” opened at the Moscow Polytechnic University. An MK correspondent got acquainted with the unusual painting.

In the building of the Moscow Polytechnic University on the third floor there is an exhibition space “Art Polytechnic”, where exhibitions are regularly organized. This time, a number of works by Moscow realist artist Evgenia Lyasnikova were presented here. Among the star guests at the opening of the exhibition was Mikhail Barshchevsky.

Conventionally, the exhibition can be divided into two parts: works made using the canvas-in-canvas technique, and works with elements of surrealism. But first things first. Near each canvas it is worth stopping and thinking slowly - these paintings do not tolerate haste! For those who painstakingly examine every detail, the work will reveal its whole and tell its story. Before us are paintings-stories, but the story is not with the help of words, but with the help of a metaphorical image. If you are especially lucky, the painting will enter into an internal dialogue. Or rather, into a dialogue between the souls of the artist and the viewer. While the guests of the opening of the exhibition are gathering, we go to look and feel.

The main character of the exhibition is the human eye. And as an organ of vision and perception, and as a mirror of the soul, and as a third eye with which we feel.

- In our age, people cleverly mimic. We don’t know what’s inside him until we reveal his essence through his eyes,” comments the artist herself.

The eyes focus on the problems of modern man. Here is a bride in a white dress, from under which instead of legs stick out... hairy hooves. Here is a grandmother, in whose eyes there is childhood, where we all come from, but her childhood was during the war, and the heroine of the canvas obviously carried this pain through all the years. By the way, the works were made using the canvas-in-canvas technique, or double canvas, which allows you to develop in the picture a whole philosophical concept of what is hidden from the eye as an organ of vision. If you dig a little deeper, look behind the canvas, you will see the second layer. Here the expression “a man with a double bottom” takes on a completely different meaning - we are not talking about a person’s duplicity, but about what his soul hides. And an artist with a double canvas is one who unfolds human pain layer by layer.

— Evgenia, what pain is behind every picture? Are these your personal stories?

- My personal stories are not here. I delve into people's problems, look inside the human soul and reflect what I see on canvas. I don’t want easy meanings, I don’t look for easy ways. And so I go from human acute pain.

-Are you an empath? Or is it a sixth sense?

- Yes, I’m an empath and I feel other people’s pain. When I am alone, like an artist, I immerse myself in a painting and cry with colors. And I put all my energy into my paintings. I want to convey a lot. Deep, but global.

-What pain worries you the most?

- Fathers and sons, adults and children. A complex and multifaceted topic. Parents today are often busy with their own affairs, and children live their own lives, left to their own devices. It is unclear where this complex topic will go. The modern world is spoiled: degradation, gadgets, children are lazy. They have suffered psychological trauma since childhood... But they want something else. There are many deep-seated problems in this topic if you delve into it. To some, many things in the relationship between fathers and children may seem trivial, but this is not entirely true. Everything is revealed depending on the eye of the beholder.

Let's go to the second part of the exhibition, the surreal one. The artist herself admits that she is closer to the realistic direction, but nevertheless, the spice of this exhibition was the works reminiscent of the works of Magritte. However, here the emphasis is on the social problems of our time. Take for example the painting “BustGlaser” - many girls recognize the metaphor “what beautiful eyes” in the painting. And what the girl herself feels at the same time is easily read from the look of the heroine of the picture.

Conversation between two young visitors near the painting “The Bride”:

- Look, if you just look at her face, you can already see in her eyes that she’s a bitch!

“And I see the pain in her eyes.” Apparently, she is not marrying for love and wants to kick the groom.

- Well, I don’t know... It seems to me that this bride is not an easy character. And we must feel sorry for the groom, he got such a devil disguised as an angel...

Here it is, art is in the eyes of the beholder - the picture will tell everyone a personal story and, perhaps, open their eyes to themselves.