Submission
AUGUST 14, 2023

Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?

Matiush First at Voskhod Gallery, Basel
June 11 – August 20, 2023

Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023

To resist this absorption, Matiush First engages in the reproduction of digital images using analogue instruments, such as drawing on paper. By appropriating the aesthetics of the digital medium, the artist seeks to retrieve a physical, embodied experience of seeing. The concept of a haptic gaze and visuality, as described by scholar Laura Marks, emphasizes a way of looking that merges with what is beheld rather than seeking to isolate or master it. 

What we see is the sleeky, smoothed surface, spilled over the Voskhod Gallery vitrine. A zoomed gaze creates a new state of intimacy, allowing us to get closer to the image, to dive in, and to establish a new way of proximity. When we zoom in on a digital image, we may delve into a realm of fragments, pixels, and particles, and distortion as well as refractions that come together to form the entirety of the image. However, at the same moment it delusions us. As we embark on this path, created by Matiush, we are flashed into the surrounding space, where refracted images of Basel, dissolved and diluted, lose their distinctness within the fluidity of the environment.   

As the vitrine of the gallery is situated within the constant flow of information and people, sharing the space of the post office and train station, it creates the complex image. The perpetual flow of particles and elements resembles the way water goes through the pipes of a city and mirrors the flow of data through digital networks, connecting us to a larger system of information. The city is pervaded by the rhizomatic system of water tubes, as we also navigate data flow. However, when the flow of data takes an unexpected turn, the image begins to disintegrate, leaving behind fragmented elements that fill the gaps in its composition.

Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023
Refraction. Are your eyes soaking?, Matiush First, Voskhod Gallery, 2023

Refraction: Are your eyes soaking?
Matiush First

Voskhod Gallery, Basel
June 11 – August 20, 2023

Curation: Yulia Fisch

Photography: Anna Denisova

Prepared with the generous support of LAF (Limonov Art Foundation).

Matiush First (Valeria Kuznetsova), born 1994, is an artist, visual thinker from Yekaterinburg, currently living and working in St. Petersburg. In her practice, she explores visual perception as a specific mental activity and how it changes by the influence of technology and culture. She studied at the Repin State Academy of Arts (St. Petersburg), participated in a series of workshops on printmaking at Musashino University (Tokyo), and numerous group exhibitions. Her latest solo exhibition “Default settings” has taken place in ART4 Museum, Moscow (2022). The idea of the current project appeared during her residency in Atelier Mondial, Basel, supported by Pro Helvetia in 2022.

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