Rome-22 2020

Editor: This is "Rome-22", a 2020 etching by Pavlo Makov. At first glance, it reminds me of a blueprint or maybe a map, but the imagery is much more delicate... almost dreamlike. How do you interpret this work? Curator: Well, it strikes me as a landscape both remembered and imagined. There’s a sense of place—clearly Rome, but also a Rome filtered through personal experience and time. Do you see how the crisp lines of the architectural elements contrast with the almost ethereal rendering of nature? The birds in flight… they’re like fleeting memories, aren’t they? Editor: Absolutely. The lines are so precise, but the backgrounds feel almost… faded. It’s an interesting tension. I guess you could say the trees look like they are on top of blocks on the blueprint. Curator: Indeed. And for me, it evokes a certain melancholy – that feeling of a place transforming, perhaps fading from collective memory, or being overwritten with new meanings. Look at the title itself, “Rome-22." I feel there is an intended relation to the expression "Catch-22", implying a contradictory problem. It whispers, it doesn’t shout, doesn’t it? What do you make of the lines dividing and connecting the elements? Editor: I see them as a literal connection and almost boundaries. Curator: I wonder if it symbolizes both connection and fragmentation – the way our experiences both unite and divide us from a place. Perhaps we have an internal and external space within all. Maybe I'm seeing myself within the landscape more than is healthy, ha! What about you? What remains with you? Editor: It’s definitely made me think about how places hold memories, both personal and collective, and how those memories can shift and change over time. It’s not just a static depiction of Rome. Curator: Exactly! Art isn't static, the world is always morphing! It’s a landscape of the mind, isn’t it? Beautiful, complex, and always evolving within us.