– 77,8°C

The face is an archetype which reproduce a primitive rhythm with endless repetition. It is necessary for immersion in the total space of exhibition. Previously extremely tactile and sensual sculpture goes beyond the physical materiality and becomes fragile and delicate as frost on the trees.

The exhibition’s title refers to the birthplace of Dunya Zakharova – Yakutia where this maximum low temperature was registered in 1938. This number is taken as an indication of the limits of human capabilities. This is an effort to immerse the viewer in the
total space where not only the top layer cools to ants, but hidden underground deep permafrost limit. And also it is an effort to show the body that exists in the struggle for survival, trying to cover itself protective heat layer and then finally dissolving
in a colorless mist.

Being at a distance from the place of birth the artist clearly aware the state of the cold in which crystallize state of pain. Now that pain is felt as a phantom and it’s expressed in sculpture. Behind all this cold love is hidden. Love which encoded in fragments identified from the love discourse and materialized in abstract forms. This obscene sentimentality which covers the whole of the exhibition serves as a kind of manifesto of the artist’s right to express his feelings without fear of being vulgar.

Dunya Zakharova demonstrates some extraordinarily refined, perfected works. She gives a lot of attention to the quality of surfaces reaching the maximum possible expressiveness of the materials.
There are mostly ‘objects’, which in this case means soft doll-like sculptures. But it’s not the kind of dolls you can buy in a shop. Zakharova’s artistic imaginarium references a supernatural world,
a fairytale world, filled with spirits, mermaids, and elves. You can feel a hidden threat in them. Her characters are not kind but they are also not definitely evil. They are more like ‘sovereign creatures’ whose origin is not quite clear. They are the fruit
of dreams, fantasies and unconscious fears. When they are embodied, when they enter the real world in the shape of dolls they begin their safe and artificial life inside the artistic world – they become objects for inspection. When we look at them we sterilize them. Looking strips phantasms of their psychic power.

The new works are the next step in developing this imaginarium.
Now we see large canvases with anthropomorphic faces that make you think of the primitive images of the Sarmatian idols. The facial features are blurred and shifted; you can hardly see them through the white shroud. You get an impression that this time we are face to face with some gods of winter, maybe demons of coldness
and freezing. Their coldness is so total and all-consuming that
it does not even allow their ‘individuality’ to come through, leaving only some indistinct features. However, when these demons appear on the gallery walls they become powerless – now we own
them, not the other way.

Anatoly Osmolovsky

Installation view

Installation view ‘– 77,8°C’ Osnova gallery, 2017

‘Face 1’, acrylic on canvas, 35 2/5 x 28 in (90 x 71 cm), 2016

‘Face’, acrylic on canvas, 74 4/5 x 59 1/10 in (190 x 150 cm), 2016

‘Untitled’, oil sticks on canvas, 86 3/5 x 157 ½ in (220 x 400 cm), 2016

‘Untitled’, watercolor, pencil on paper, 17 7/10 x 13 in (45 x 33 cm), 2016

‘Untitled’, pencils, cotton thread on paper, 17 7/10 x 13 in (45 x 33 cm), 2016