Despite the catastrophic intonations, this painting vibrates with colossal energy. It is expressive in the color sound heated to the temperature of a stellar core, extremely tense. And romantic at the same time – in terms of the indestructibly naive expectation of change for the better. The birth of a new star is always a step in the evolution of galaxies and the Universe as a whole, big or small. Its significance for the “fates of the world” depends on the scale of the star itself… And although the author resorts to the language of allegories, in this case, they are too crystal-clear. On the one hand, the theme of the modern apocalypse, a global catastrophe on the brink of which the whole world and each of us is hanging by a thread every second and every hour, is touched upon. Because the cause-and-effect relationship of events remains unpredictable – the notorious “butterfly effect” has not been canceled by anyone. Being here-and-now, we felt it fully. Therefore, looking at these flashes on the canvas, it is difficult to get rid of associations with the current state of affairs in the country shaken by war, political and economic cataclysms, while its citizens are torn between the feeling of disappointment in the corruption of any authority and unprecedented civil solidarity and patriotism. The moral of the artist’s message, as it seems to me, is simple – the birth of a new star is accompanied by an explosion, and we may still have to experience it. We sense this explosion. We fear it. We fear and, at the same time, unconsciously expect it with hope, hoping to enjoy the majestic spectacle. The spectacle of a catastrophe, especially on a cosmic scale, is always considered a reason to go beyond the usual boundaries of the narrow world of everyday life and feel the grandeur and infinity of the universe and one’s own smallness as a “grain of sand in space.” The main thing in this is to be at a safe distance and not to burn in the core of the ignited star… Actually, the Ukrainian artist, living and working in Munich and London, is in this position of a detached external observer.
[…]
In Pavlo Kerestey’s work, a symbolist-plastic line is combined with an increasingly laconic and social artistic language. He began his path with decorative-baroque abstraction of the late 1980s. He returned to painting, already figurative, a decade later… In his symbolist works, the intention for a festive sound continues – by its tense, forced color perception, they are very close to the Ukrainian avant-garde. The visual motifs are simple, archetypal, they are repeated as the artist’s exploration of his “inner landscape.” As symbols of basic existential states coming from dreams – caves, hills, forest edges, children climbing trees…
Kerestey often paints powerful, knotted tree crowns in which images of children are “hidden” (the painting was created based on joint performances with Susanne Clausen (Szuper Gallery) and Michelle Sereda (Curtain Razors). A person feels as lost in the adult world as a child “lost” in a tree… In the painting exhibited in Kyiv, we see the same inner landscape of the artist transferred to the external space of forests and river valleys. The animated pristine nature is colored in increasingly anxious, fiery tones. Which, however, does not disrupt its harmony – the catastrophic nature is harmonious in its own way… The laws of the world of human relationships are traced by the artist in another, less idyllic line. Here is its own matrix – the motif of “struggle for survival,” manifested in brutal fights. Children fight, adults fight, “cubist policemen” – the whole world tries to kill the opponent to stay alive. By the way, this is the name of one of the series, transitional in language – “Stayin’ Alive.” The riot of colors here is subdued by the dark silhouettes of two men and a woman actively beating each other. The highlighting of the fight spectacle indicates that the entire popular action culture experiencing a crisis is based on it. From the search for meaning, it evolves into meaningless “action”…Comment type: Published comment
Author: Viktoriya Burlaka
Bibliography:
Burlaka V. Pavlo Kerestey. Exit from the valley of crisis [Electronic resource] / Viktoriya Burlaka // ART Ukraine. – 2015. – Access mode to the resource: http://artukraine.com.ua/a/pavel-kerestey-vykhod-iz-doliny-krizisa/#.V3bfaLiLQhc.
