Ivan Pokidyshev’s paintings deal with the two phenomena essential for the artist – namely, light and warmth. These attributes of life and hope carry a universal meaning in every system of values and symbols
Pokidyshev’s artistic practice is based on thermography, a process used for creating images of infrared radiation captured with a thermal camera. Infrared radiation is emitted by all objects with a temperature above absolute zero. The warmer the object, the more vivid and bright its radiation, causing its thermal image to appear incandescent.
The warm glow we see in thermograms represents human warmth and vital energy, whether flowing from one figure to another and splashing all around, or, contrariwise, fading away amid the cold emptiness.
Ivan Pokidyshev’s characters are young and beautiful. Their overwhelming vitality manifests itself in inner light and warmth. This life-affirming energy, along with the existential motif of roaming in the darkness of obscurity and imminent death, are the recurring themes of this exhibition.
