The venue is Odessa Fine Art Museum at 5A Sofievskya St., Odessa, Ukraine
Sculpture, as a product of any artistic activity, has always been tightly coupled with the question "What is the world around me?". Primarily, it is a form. The form that speaks to an observer in a whisper. While creating a particular vibe around it, the sculpture forms a space, requiring light and air. Its energy interacts with nature, landscape or architectural environment.
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The exhibition concept emanated from the revelation, whereas the revelation always results in a new event. Here’s a chance to trace and compare the transformation of the art by Mikhail Reva. There is a kind of cycling, as in 1995 Odesa Fine Arts Museum held his first solo exhibition comprising a wide range of topics – from the Bible to Avant-garde. The Revelation exhibition is arranged respectively, narrating the revelations of the different periods.
The exhibition opens with the icons created by the artist in 1994 for the film "Desert" directed by Mikhail Katz. The young sculptor, who had just graduated from the institute, had to give up acquired skills and sculpt with his hands a boy, who was surrounded by the apostles and Jesus.
The artist’s recent lockdown in Mexico has been embedded in the exhibition plot. Mexico struck the artist with saturation and openness of color, incredibility of natural forms and global environmental problems. Thus Mikhail got to experience with another form along with traditional technologies, combining traditional techniques and still preserving the iconic essence of the sculpture. Sculpture is a sign and a completed image, which has lots of meanings. So when Michael applies colour, then by means of shaping the form, he makes the sculpture no longer speak in a whisper, but scream aloud.
"Everything that exists is breathing since it was born. Breathing is life. The artist sees the metastasis that have appeared the Earth’s flesh and his breathing is his appeal to humanity. The spiritual immunity of the Earth is violated. Mutation of nature and its natural self-purification lead to the new stage of evolution. The virus is a response of nature to human actions. In wildlife everything is interrelated. Now we are witnessing a violation of the eco-balance," Mikhail Reva comments on the project.
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Sculpture, as a type of art, is archaic in itself. It was the first of all kinds of arts to appear. Some plastic technologies have not at all changed so far. Mikhail combines traditional and modern technologies that turn to become classics. Thus, the final exhibition room holds the works of different years. This is a search for figurative solutions and stylings. It highlights an instant the artist is engaged in, where each sculpture is a tiny parable.