Exhibition Timofey Smirnov "RAMAntica or RAM-antique" Automatic translate

Timofey Smirnov’s new project includes 14 pencil drawings. Some sheets are part of objects (Suitcase mood, Valentine’s card, Door to Europe), but each drawing is placed in the original frame. Frames are modern, antique, made by the artist and even painted by him. As usual, Smirnov’s works are pleasing to the eye, and then make you think.

Timofey Smirnov, Portrait of the FED, 2016, paper / pencil, image in a circle 33x33 cm, mat, digital printing 60x90 cm

There is a certain element of chance in the emergence of this project. Once the artist was presented with two magnificent frames, which, being empty, focused on a piece of white wall inside the frame itself. Gradually, a fragment of the void inside the frame acquired the meaning of a bright endless space of an endless world. “Framing the total emptiness” - this is how Timofei Smirnov formulated the concept of his project. The frame itself, in this context, acquires the metaphysical meaning of the window, as an exit from the author into the three-dimensional world behind this frame-window. But what is emptiness, it can be considered as “something” and “nothing”. In the author’s works there is a void - a dull black, bottomless and absolute whiteness, which carry numerous meanings. Let us consider the presented works as a movement from black to white, from darkness to light. To do this, we will build a series: Suitcase mood> Hour 2> Valentine’s card> MF> Private Life 2> Faberge cuckoo> Solarization> Portraitfed> Door to Europe> Coquette> Morning in the forest. The first two works, as it were, materialize our imaginary metaphysical movement. We observe an absolutely white void only in the inner hand-drawn frame of the last work, however, the surrounding forest between the outer and inner frames turns this emptiness into the light pouring on us from behind the trees. In all other works, the author “assigns” the emptiness of a paper sheet, filling it with images of cultural memory, the past, memories and life realities.

Work number 3 - the steel frame frames the picture, you can look at it by opening the door - the entrance to the author’s world. Door - entrance, window-frame - exit. In work No. 5, the inner space is filled with a dull black void dissected by a narrow strip of white paper with a pattern. There is an illusion of a half-open window, the shutters of which do not reflect the pictures of the external world, as if inner blackness stuck to them. The white strip of the sheet is filled with images of dreams, heavenly bliss. Comprehending the "void", the artist did not accidentally devote two works No. 7 and No. 8 to digital photography, since by manipulating the optical density using the solarization method it is possible to obtain transparent contour images, in this case the voids of the paper sheet and the image merge into one luminiferous space. A special theme of the project is the frame in the frame (No. 8 - 11), the inner frame creates the effect of the picture in the picture, and highlights the main author’s image. At the same time, these works can be read as a window in a window arbitrarily filled with images of memories. Hence the Eiffel Tower over the railway tunnel and Christmas trees on the sides (No. 9). Having dedicated the project to the relationship of the frame with the void, Timofei Smirnov reports: “Here it is. Having named and not finished, I SO see a combination of frame and peace, emptiness and fullness, content and decor. Short and unclear… ".