The project was created as a progressive platform for visual experiments and media innovations by young Russian artists. They have found their own voice and recognizable handwriting and are actively searching for means of expression. They have repeatedly exhibited their work, but they are ready to try new ways of communicating with the public, explore experimental spaces, take risks and explore the borderlands of visual art and multimedia.

Hit the Road
2013
Video diptych
5’ 33’

The project was created as a progressive platform for visual experiments and media innovations by young Russian artists. They have found their own voice and recognizable handwriting and are actively searching for means of expression. They have repeatedly exhibited their work, but they are ready to try new ways of communicating with the public, explore experimental spaces, take risks and explore the borderlands of visual art and multimedia.

In his video works, artist Roman Mokrov actively explores the mythology of the post-Soviet space, each time discovering the edge where the imaginary and desired conflict with the disappointing literalness of the real world. The subject of his research is always, as it were, around the corner — in everyday landscapes, which are usually viewed with a blurred eye and perceived as banal and insufficiently developed public spaces, abandoned recreation areas or monuments of the glorious past, stuck in an uncertain present.

Overgrown ponds, concrete fences, sandy beaches and muddy swamps in the Moscow region are not only an organic environment where the artist himself grew up and lives, but also a metaphor for the wild nature reserve of modern Russia, whose inhabitants have long lost faith in the miraculous. Roman Mokrov, on the other hand, builds fantastic worlds based on everyday paintings at the intersection of the collective unconscious, folk culture, national habits and media images. In the works from the Pastoral series, the artist resorts to industrial film special effects or creates characters who complement the silent natural landscapes and enliven empty spaces where the observer’s gaze finds nothing surprising.