TEARS, reframed: visiting the latest Tracey Emin Artist Foundation exhibition.
A project implementing new approaches by artists you are going to meet this summer in Margate.
Tracey Emin is a master of working with personal experiences and traumas. The materiality of feelings and the feelings of materials are also among her greatest strengths, which is why looking at her work with artists in her free art residency, TEARS, is always so interesting — you never know which part of the final exhibition will touch your heart. And TEARS is free for all of the participants — that's how you know the competition to get into it was hard enough to choose the best artists.
This year, nine participants took part in the residency. They approached painting from absolutely different perspectives, and all of them showed that the potential of this medium is still endless. We are going to tell you about all of them. Though, you still have to see their artworks for yourself!
Esme Keenleyside
Esme creates paintings in which reality is never static. It slips away from us, leaving only vague memories that change with every new glance at the canvas. Her oil paint creates that very same haze that appears before our eyes a second before we drift off to sleep.
Kirubel Mandefro
This artist transforms masculinity into an intimate experience of his own fragility, which nevertheless becomes a contemplative act of protest against contemporary gender norms. His ‘quiet’ and serene canvases, with their combination of muted acrylic tones, conceal a sincerity that has been released from our mind.
Javed Akhtar
What makes Javed’s works so dangerous is that the viewer is drawn into a haunting and relentless sifting through all the narrative symbols and details applied in oil on canvas. The artist offers no interpretations of his own, and it is within this freedom of interpretation that ever-new readings emerge, depending even on the smallest puzzle pieces.
Olya Avstreyh
The artist’s work has many faces, or, as she herself puts it, alter egos, which are both confined and free within the space of the canvas. Through them, she explores the experience of the feminine image, weaving solitary and sombre motifs into a single narrative.
Anderson Asteclines
This artist plunges us into the paradoxical depths of consciousness. His light brushstrokes in oil, layer upon layer, lay bare profound, ecstatic and traumatic experiences. It is difficult to find anything truly serene in his work: Anderson’s entire world seems to exist on the brink, in the lull before the storm.
Valentina Attolini
Waves of colour and texture clash head-on in Valentina Attolini’s works. She works directly on the canvas with her hands, thereby forging a stronger connection with the materials and the subject matter. Her works are structures that are at once powerful and utterly vulnerable.
Olivia Guillot
In her art, Olivia Guillot immerses us in the abstract substance of canvas and paint, allowing us to perceive a limited space as a boundless realm of interpretation. Through the shapes and colours rendered in oil, she enables us to discover new associations, or to lose ourselves in exploration.
IyunOla Sanyaolu
Her works keep us in a constant balance between abstraction and figuration, offering us a multifaceted perspective on each piece. In this context, the gestures and technique of applying oil paint, along with the angles, become yet another means of representation, creating a fluid reality in which figurative images allow us to draw on the familiar, whilst abstraction appeals to our spirituality.
Elizaveta Zalieva
Elizaveta’s art is a ceaseless transformation from the ordinary to the mysterious. Together with her, we delve into ancient visual languages and explore symbols and images hidden behind the passage of time.
By Daniil Tokarev
