""Берег"
Бумага, акварель
70×50см.
Nexapoda is the scientific name of insects adopted in biology to designate this class of living beings. The appearance of this exhibition in the Nabokov Museum is natural, his love for entomology (the science of insects) is well known. Now, next to the museum collection of butterflies, which Vladimir Nabokov loved to catch with a net and settle in the artistic world of his works, an entomological collection will appear, based on the graphic works of Maria Kviklis, made in watercolor, etching and lithography techniques.
The origin of insects in the work of the young artist is also partly literary in nature. Among the works presented at the exhibition are illustrations for the novel "The Wasp Factory" by Ian Banks. In handling a literary work, the artist is careful, but independent, her works do not become exclusively book illustrations. While remaining faithful to the source, in reading the book she finds answers to personal questions that arise on the paths of her own philosophical and artistic searches. And Maria prefers to search in unexpected places, for example, in the world of insects.
"Summer"
Etching
Limited edition
Private collection
The love of insects is a quality that is not so common among people. They usually cause an instinctive negative reaction. The Latin name Nexapoda expresses one of the most striking features of insects - six-legged. For a human being - a creature with four limbs - the swarming of these paws on a physiological level causes a feeling of otherness. They are Alien, Others. Hence, probably, the usual apprehension when meeting them. Maria treats them with sympathy, bugs and "insects" are her dear friends, she is pleased to understand the complex structure of their legs, shells and antennae, observe their life in nature, study species and subspecies from a biological atlas. However, the insects in her paintings do not look like sketches in scientific catalogs, they live an active and some kind of mystical life. Turning to the world of small creatures, going into the microcosm, Maria uses the zoom-zoom effect, brings the object closer. At the same time, strokes of objects and movements are recorded in engravings, and in watercolors the boundaries of the world are blurred, space turns into allegorical gaps and abysses. Realities turn into color, become transparent and permeable, the combination of spots builds a color universe with red and purple dominants, torn by yellow, blue and green flashes. The color turns into energy, in a field saturated with it, insects are circling, flying, crawling, rustling, buzzing, whose corpuscles seem gigantic.
Insects have the greatest diversity compared to all other animals on the planet, there are about 1 million species of them. Of course, only a part of this huge army can be seen in the paintings of Maria Kviklis. Insects here strictly adhere to the hierarchy. A huge Fly, the Queen of Nexapoda, occupies the throne. The cavaliers of the Wasp, magnificently armed and dressed in a magnificent yellow and black uniform, serve her. This aristocracy of the world of tall grasses takes care of privileged residents - larvae. Nymph princesses (Nabokov associations pop up by themselves) are similar to adults, and juvenile dauphins - worm-like larvae - in order to become like their parents, they need to go through the pupal stage.
The metamorphosis that awaits the larva, in the paintings of Maria Kviklis, turns into a metaphor for the creative understanding of life and into a metaphor for the transformations that a person undergoes in life itself. Insect life is fleeting: a brief century, a bird's beak, autumn cold, some new insecticide. But this is not a problem for them, their nature is subordinated to instincts: to eat, to prolong the birth and not to think about death. But a person sees this situation differently. For him, the feeling of mortality becomes a trauma that everyone solves in their own way: they overcome it, live with it or turn a blind eye to it. The theme of the neighborhood of life and death is vividly highlighted in the artist's work. Insects are one of the ways to actualize it. They are mysterious and incomprehensible, they look like alien aliens, their otherness attracts and scares a little, just as we are both afraid and love to listen to scary fairy tales. A collision with insects brings a person out of the usual state, pulls out the feelings driven into the subconscious.
The artist develops the psychology of the trauma of mortality felt by a person in an installation, the theme of which is inspired by the novel "Wasp Factory" by Ian Banks. The object appears in the center of the exposition, like a candle flame, around which moths are circling. Red wax, insects stuck in a transparent substance, clock faces as a reminder of the inexorability and transience of time. This is an altar, a deadly trap for insects, and a cocoon from which a new life will be born.
Solving the problem and overcoming the universal trauma in the artist's work is realized through love. To every creature. To every little booger. Entomophobia (translated from Greek. - fear of insects) turns into entomophilia (love of insects). The latter term, by the way, is also commonly used as a designation for cross-pollination of plants with the help of insects. So it is better to perceive insects not as inhabitants of other worlds, but as an important element of the erotic life of plants or an amorous allegory. It is no coincidence that the main flight path, according to the title of one of the works presented at the exhibition, is in search of a naked female body
"Baby and Eric"
Watercolor
Paper
70×50 cm.
"Wasp Factory"
Watercolor
Paper
70×50 cm
""The Green Man"
Paper, watercolor
100×70 cm.
"Hayloft"
Etching
Limited edition of 30 copies
Size: 48.4 x 49.7 cm