"The thing that makes me want to paint is paint" - Flora Yukhnovich
Some gorgeously large, immersive paintings at Victoria Miro by Flora Yukhnovich who quite evidently enjoys not only the physical act of painting itself, but also the textural qualities and nuances of the medium itself. These paintings are self-assured, drawing on a knowledgeable wealth of art history and repertoire of techniques which straddle both representational and abstract painting. I was interested to discover immediate visual similarities and references to the palettes of the Rococo paintings of Boucher, Fragonard and Tiepolo much like those of Yukhnovich's contemporary, painter Chris Rivers whose work I saw in January (here). Here too cherubs appear to fly and romp across skies festooned with flora. I also detected the possible influence of the compositions of Post-Impressionists like Cezanne. I enjoyed drinking in the balanced arrangements of these paintings from a distance, but equally rewarding was getting up close to their surfaces to observe the energetic mark-making and sweeps of the different sized brushes used, as well as the artful drips of paint and contrasting yet harmonious colour palette. Yukhnovich's style bridges both figuration and abstraction. They are like historical paintings but seen through the very modern filters of Photoshop or Instragram. The titles of the paintings as well as the title of this show itself - Thirst Trap, knowingly reference contemporary culture creating a dichotomy. Yukhnovich does more than enough to successfully marry these styles, the historical and modern, and in the process creates something uniquely her own.
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