Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov
Mister Happy | 미스터 해피 , 2024
Oil on canvas | 캔버스에 유채
121 x 90 cm
47 5/8 x 35 3/8 in
47 5/8 x 35 3/8 in
Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov reects on the meanings of a smile in his works. In the modern digital era, it has become a conventional symbol of goodwill and pleasant emotions; however, in...
Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov reects on the meanings of a smile in his works. In the modern digital era, it has become a conventional symbol of goodwill and
pleasant emotions; however, in reality, people often smile while doing bad things. It was important to the artist to capture this ambiguity, so he creates a dual image in which the smile balances on the edge between pleasure and disgust.
The portrait of the smiling character itself is blurred. The canvas depicts a creature that resembles both a human and an animal. The “creature” is one of the key concepts in Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov’s practice. In his works, the artist strives to capture its uidity and ambiguity.
“If you ask anyone to imagine a creature, they will most likely picture something quite vague. It will have limbs, eyes, and a mouth. But what is it, and what does it look like? It would bevery difcult for a person to pinpoint anything specic. This is the strange phenomenon of the word ‘creature,’ which I often try to capture", says the artist.
(c) Anna Mayskaya, Research Assistant of Anna Nova Gallery
The creature is what the institution cannot fully name, what the social order cannot
comfortably host, what the family of acceptable faces cannot absorb without remainder. And yet these creatures are also self-portraits insistently so. Not self-portraiture as likeness, but as a condition which the self pictured before it is stabilized into identity. If classic self-portraiture promises interior truth, Fedotov-Fedorov proposes a more fragile and more political claim. The creature becomes an autobiography not yet translated into acceptable language. It is the self at the moment of formation shaped by institutional care, social masking, and the ongoing requirement to remain legible.
(c) Sungah Serena Choo, Independent Curator
pleasant emotions; however, in reality, people often smile while doing bad things. It was important to the artist to capture this ambiguity, so he creates a dual image in which the smile balances on the edge between pleasure and disgust.
The portrait of the smiling character itself is blurred. The canvas depicts a creature that resembles both a human and an animal. The “creature” is one of the key concepts in Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov’s practice. In his works, the artist strives to capture its uidity and ambiguity.
“If you ask anyone to imagine a creature, they will most likely picture something quite vague. It will have limbs, eyes, and a mouth. But what is it, and what does it look like? It would bevery difcult for a person to pinpoint anything specic. This is the strange phenomenon of the word ‘creature,’ which I often try to capture", says the artist.
(c) Anna Mayskaya, Research Assistant of Anna Nova Gallery
The creature is what the institution cannot fully name, what the social order cannot
comfortably host, what the family of acceptable faces cannot absorb without remainder. And yet these creatures are also self-portraits insistently so. Not self-portraiture as likeness, but as a condition which the self pictured before it is stabilized into identity. If classic self-portraiture promises interior truth, Fedotov-Fedorov proposes a more fragile and more political claim. The creature becomes an autobiography not yet translated into acceptable language. It is the self at the moment of formation shaped by institutional care, social masking, and the ongoing requirement to remain legible.
(c) Sungah Serena Choo, Independent Curator