Showing: November 3rd – 30th
Reception: Saturday November 12th, 5-7 pm
In the realm of ceramics, anything is possible. The medium of clay, a divine material out of which the first human was said to be shaped, allows any sort of form or figure to come to life. For her solo show, Enter & Escape, Natasha Dikareva’s work pushes the boundary between reality and imagination, bringing to life previously unknown creatures. These creatures are delicate and filled with emotions of contemplation, they let us catch a glimpse of their unseen world, a playful recombination of the familiar and the foreign.
Enter & Escape continues two series Dikareva has been working on, The Shell Dwellers and The Escapists. The Shell Dwellers series explores a moment of sheltering–tuning out the cacophony of urban life and buzz of electronics and tuning into oneself. These beings experience a more primordial, somatic connection with the world, feeling with their bodies instead of their minds.Listening to the rhythm of their own organism, their skin develops images like photographs in the darkroom. These tattoos bypass words, immediately communicating their personal myths and identities, their adventures through labyrinths and deserts, their encounters with other strange creatures.
The Escapists similarly desire to escape from noisy reality. Soaking in baths while reading books or browsing virtual reality through smartphones, they leave behind the hustle and bustle of daily life. Instead, they immerse themselves in simple pleasures of the bath and absorb a quiet solitary moment.Tuning into the feminine element of water, they also immerse themselves in emotion, purification, intuition, the subconscious, and the mysteries of the self. The bathtubs and sometimes their bodies are intricately embellished with china painting, depicting the places of their fantasy and poetry of the books they read. The instruments of their immersion–books and digital devices–offer a gateway to another reality. A trace of their inner existence comes to the surface, a flash of a fleeting dream.