Untitled. Srawberry Andreevna 2015

Curator: Here we have Alevtyna Kakhidze’s “Untitled. Srawberry Andreevna,” an ink drawing created in 2015. It has a sparse quality. Editor: Yes, sparse and haunting. The thin black lines against the white paper evoke a sense of fragility. What’s immediately striking is the starkness, the minimalist approach to depicting quite weighty subject matter, wouldn't you agree? Curator: Precisely. Look at the composition; how the narrative unfolds. We have a village scene contrasted with a graveyard, all rendered in this intentionally naive, almost childlike, style. Consider how this deliberate simplicity, almost a rejection of academic polish, challenges our understanding of art making and artistic value. Editor: The lines feel raw, almost urgent, as if the artist is compelled to capture a fleeting moment. The figures holding what appear to be cell phones…they create a jarring juxtaposition with the traditional orthodox church in the background. This element seems almost to ground the work in its temporal moment. Curator: The combination of the seemingly timeless and the contemporary is central here. Kakhidze is offering commentary on the commodification of grief, perhaps, or the way modern technology mediates our experience of even the most solemn spaces. The red stars atop some of the grave markers introduce political and historical considerations too, drawing us into a specific ideological context. Editor: Interesting observation! And now that I look more closely, the architecture rendered alongside those graves feels deliberately dehumanized, lacking nuance… What kind of space do you feel this work attempts to carve out for art practices given it engages so intently with broader socioeconomic and cultural contexts? Curator: I’m of the conviction that she makes these themes far more accessible and encourages critical engagement in otherwise easily discarded aspects of everyday existence. It reframes traditional views and brings a contemporary criticality to our doorstep. Editor: Indeed, one feels the artwork isn’t just documenting a reality but actively shaping a new one by making itself, quite unconventionally, into its own means of expression. Curator: Yes, I agree that the piece pushes against conventional notions of beauty and skill, instead prizing authenticity of experience and inviting us to reconsider our relationships to memory, loss, and technology.