Tablecloth XI 2015

Editor: We're looking at Pavlo Makov's "Tablecloth XI," an ink and pencil drawing on paper created in 2015. There's something both familiar and deeply unsettling about it; it reminds me of a distorted memory. What do you see in this piece? Curator: I see layers, not just of ink, but of meaning accumulated over time. Notice the tableware—forks, knives—scattered and assembled, almost ritualistically. Table settings often signify connection, sustenance, shared experience. But here, they seem…abandoned, abstracted. They speak to absence and a break in tradition. Editor: A break? Curator: Yes. The tablecloth itself, a signifier of domesticity and perhaps even abundance, is rendered as a fragmented map or code. The geometric patterns disrupting its surface are very deliberate. I believe it is not merely an image of a disrupted dinner setting. What kind of symbols do you recognize and associate with the images? Editor: Well, the marks surrounding the more realistic items do resemble some kind of obscure language. Curator: Precisely. Almost as if trying to remember an event from very vague memories, they act as psychological impressions more than specific imagery. This can mean different things to different people. The emotional residue of the scene is more palpable than a detailed description of that setting. Do you find this emotionally moving? Editor: I do, actually. At first glance it's just an abstract image but, the more I look at it, the more those simple marks do make me remember certain dinners with friends and family. Curator: Then Makov has succeeded. By disassembling these simple domestic images into near-abstraction he urges us to go digging for our own impressions and symbolism in otherwise banal situations. Editor: That's given me a whole new way to look at it; I'm now wondering about my own emotional attachment to specific dinner scenarios, as well. Curator: Excellent! Sometimes abstraction functions to highlight reality.