LORA RUSSINOVA
“UNAUTHENTIC LANDSAPE”

23 Sept. – 07 Oct. 2008

Returning to the hometown after two decennia is like a dream for a painter-nomad. In a dream, the memories do not resemble nature.

Dreams emerge as frozen frames from a film of days gone by. With time these frames have become thinner. The world beyond the scope of everyday visual experience has become elusive, vague. Everything seems to be at its place, yet it has lost its usual, authentic form – just as in the world of today. The river Seine seems unreal in the lights of Paris; Tokyo, seen from above, does not reveal an authentic Japanese landscape. The observer has put on a mask so that the landscape could be experienced as authentic through the inner vision.

The observer can try to enclose the landscape in a cube and keep it for herself. But the objects have already lost their authentic form; the colours have faded away.

The observer attempts then, once again, to see the entire, authentic landscape… the reality… the trace one leaves behind adds yet more layers.

The landscape is unauthentic as far as one leaves traces – the lights of Tokyo, Paris, Seoul, Stockholm, New York; dazzling colours, bright as the colours of the prayer flags high up in the Himalaya. One wishes to be “there”, not only “here”.

The dazzling colours of the trace that one has left behind can be seen only from the Peak. The Peak itself (Mount Everest) is yet another landscape that can be reached in dreams, as well as in imagination.