Emotional paintings with non-specific imagery—this is how one can describe the artworks that will be presented in the space on Reitarska Street. Saienko started as a landscape painter and still continues to work with nature. However, the plein-air now exists only in his imagination—a memory that finds its expressive realisation in a studio. There is no logic in his painting. Associations, thoughts, desires are completely deconstructed and layered to become a homogeneous or textured stain. But we can still guess a scene and a landscape that wants to become abstract.
In his works, Anton Saienko paints a natural landscape that cannot exist in reality. He strives to find his own language and create the effect of depth to invite a viewer into another dimension, into a space free for interpretation. Day and night, sky and earth—everything is mixed as if in a centrifuge to move away from the linearity of time and the straightforwardness of the narrative. This lack of order and the frenzy of the works is a natural continuation of Saienko's illogic, a whirlwind of consciousness, both individual (of the artist) and collective (of us, the viewers of his works).
The main work of the exposition has the same title as the exhibition—it is a monumental painting that dominates the space over other pieces and creates its own special environment in the gallery. Here, morning and evening tones are combined: within the composition, the viewer sees a romantic sunrise sky, which in the same field of the painting flows into a late-night landscape.
"Anton's painting is always an adventure and a challenge for curatorial work. As in land art or performance, in painting Anton trusts the elements of the material and follows the process, rather than submitting himself to a desired goal, a preconceived image or form (because, after all, does art practice have an ultimate goal?). Thus, his figurative compositions can end up being absorbed by a dense layer of black with all its possible shades, and The Naked Room has already had the pleasure of hosting such a Saienko's "Phantom" in 2020. Who knows, perhaps the colourful weave mimicking the landscape presented today is not the artist's final statement either, and these canvases are waiting for further reincarnation."
Lizaveta German and Maria Lanko
