Watch a short video about the work process
What is this bas-relief about?
I got hooked on the associative series associated with the names of our customers. Elena the Beautiful and Alexander the Great.
But here's the problem. These are two absolutely non-overlapping characters. Elena is a mythical character, Alexander is a historical one. And the distance between them is 1000 years.
As always, in such conceptual projects, I start by studying history. And I found where they intersected, at least geographically. At Three. Elena was taken there. But Alexander, having invaded Asia Minor, could not help but enter Troy.
In fact, Elena and Alexander lived in parallel universes. And then the decision came how to symbolically beat it — I will show these entities and personalities in layers.
This is the first level of metaphorical storytelling. They are in parallel universes, the "feminine" literally behind the "masculine", like behind a rock. To focus on this, we made literally two levels, beating them with backlight.
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The next step is which encrypted code I can give to the viewer. The card became this code. The silhouette of the Aegean Sea. Elena was taken away by sea (by water), and Alexander passed by the shore (by land). And they met in Three, but only in parallel universes.
And so that they still intersect, I cut a portal – hole at this point (Three), where I placed the light, thereby setting the third dimension of the painting, perpendicular to the plane of the work.
I imagined that through this portal, the souls of Elena the Beautiful and Alexander the Great were reincarnated from these parallel universes in our time. Into this space, into this married couple.
