The distances marked by strength

SISTEMA GALLERY presents a solo exhibition by artist Bella Levikova. The exhibition includes over twenty paintings created by the artist from the 1980s to recent times.

This large-scale exhibition offers a glimpse into the late work of this renowned artist, whose style developed during the heyday of Soviet nonconformist art. A participant in the "Bulldozer" exhibition (1974), the "Beekeeping" pavilion at VDNKh (1975), and regular projects of the City Committee of Graphic Artists on Malaya Gruzinskaya Street, she was closely associated with the generation of artists of the "Thaw," for whom the language of abstraction represented free creativity, spiritual liberation, and the possibility of creating a "new reality."

A graduate of the Department of Art Theory and History at Moscow State University, Levikova’s work evolved from the spontaneous, intuitive style of Abstract Expressionism to a more analytical, deliberate method based on rethinking and organizing impulses received from the outside world. Like Yuri Zlotnikov, Bella Levikova is developing her own system, based on an integral vision of reality, enriched by the artist’s own empirical experience.

Over time, her style has evolved many times: from subdued tones to vibrant colors, from soft biomorphic forms to strict geometric constructions. Bella Levikova’s works are based on an interest in the structure of the world, sacred geometry, philosophy, psychology, quantum physics, and astrophysics. They represent a fusion of modern scientific concepts, the possibilities of color and form communication, pioneered by Malevich and Kandinsky, and the ideas of abstract art from the Thaw era. The artist herself states that she strives to convey in her paintings the informational and energetic flows that permeate humanity, the planet, and the cosmos: "This is not a way of the Mind — but a way of responsible Being…"

Levikova’s works were included in the first Sotheby’s auction in Moscow in 1988. Today, her paintings are in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the State Hermitage Museum, the New Museum, the Zimmerli Art Museum, the Kolodzei Art Foundation, as well as in private collections in Russia, Europe, and the United States. In 2016, Bella Levikova became an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts.