What are you afraid of? - solo exhibition of Anastasia Rydlevskaya
11.06.22 - 19.06.22
BB Galeria, Krakow, Poland
Anastasia Rydlevskaya — Belarusian artist, born in Minsk, Belarus, 1995. After 4 years in America, 1998 – 2002, she moved to Minsk again. She has a bachelor’s degree in French and Italian languages and literature and a master’s degree in French literature. For three years Rydlevskaya teached foreign literature at the Belarusian State University. In 2021 moved to Gdansk, Poland. Has participated in 5 solo and 16 group exhibitions in Belarus, Poland, Germany and France.
Anastasia Rydlevskaya’s paintings are the language in which the artist speaks to the world, to others and to herself. Her artwork resembles naive art with a profound symbolic base:
TIGER as the force that carries one furiously through the horrors and wonders of life;
SUN as the all-receiving and all-understanding world-god-universe;
POPPIES with human eyes as an expression of compassion and also a reinterpretation of B. Pascal’s “thinking reed”;
BURNING MOON as the uncontrollable destructiveness;
LION as the power that absorbs all one’s sadness and tears and turns into light blue like a clear sky;
HYENAS as a representation of the dark chaos of being;
BLOOMING RAFFLESIA as the World and the Rotting Rafflesia as the human suffering in the world.
The artist also has a firm symbolism of colors:
RED as the dichotomy of fear from the realisation of the finitude of being and also the warmth of life;
BLUE as the mix of tranquility and life put on hold after traumatizing events;
GOLD as the glow of life shining through the dark of death;
BLACK as the pain that burns one to lifeless charcoal.
The exhibition “What are you afraid of?” is inspired by the philosophy of E. Levinas, M. Buber and W. Benjamin, specifically the philosophical concept of meeting the “Other” in the frames of Totality and critique of the notion of “aura” in the meaning of the politicization and aestheticization of culture and existence.
Through the prism of personal feeling of the world, ANASTASIA RYDLEVSKAYA attempts to plunge into the depths of the unconscious of humanity in order to reflect on her personal borderline emotions and traumas from the reality we all live in. Art is a tool that helps the artist to establish a connection with others in a universal context.
Catalog was made by Daria Akhrameika
