Body. Touch. Sense
Our existence is entirely due to our sensorium. With the help of our senses, we navigate the world, feel balance, temperature, vibrations, and touch. We are able not only to comprehensively perceive the surrounding reality, but also to change it independently. Such interaction with objects of the material world is very concentrated, but not always conscious.
Is touch important enough? Can we trace the causal relationship between them and the reactions? What does contact lead to?
Touching or calling a name is a decisive step, and every word or action has a further effect. Only we can decide whether to unite or destroy, because we have the freedom and responsibility to influence the destinies of others.
The paintings in this exhibition, in a geometric manner, present us with people made up of very different sensory experiences, men and women seeking happiness but experiencing trials and tribulations. These characters try to be sincere, they proudly wear all their past marks and hesitate how to proceed. They are sacrificial and brave, exhausted and pensive.
The temples of our souls — our bodies — are often deliberately destroyed, undergo aging or other transformations. Maintaining harmony with oneself, harmony between body and spirit, and balancing cooperation with the world should be essential for everyone.
Masha Shostakowska is a Ukrainian artist who lives and works in Kyiv. The categories of femininity, physicality, experiences and pain are decisive for her art. In her works, she also interprets the phenomenon of the family and social stereotypes regarding appropriate behavior. The artist's paintings often contain many intensely and expressively colored elements that acquire symbolic meaning through the form.