Neighbourhood #8 2018

Editor: Pavlo Makov’s "Neighbourhood #8," an etching and ink print from 2018, strikes me as both incredibly ordered and strangely melancholic. The regimented buildings contrast so sharply with the more organic shapes of the tree and the dog. What do you see in this piece? Curator: The regimented structures certainly command attention. Consider them not just as buildings but as symbols of societal organization, perhaps even control. Notice how they’re presented in layers, almost like strata of memory. The dog, by contrast, is an instinctual, unburdened presence. Do you feel a tension between those two visual languages? Editor: Absolutely! The buildings feel almost like they're pressing down on the dog and the tree, but they're also incomplete somehow. Curator: Indeed. And how does the artist convey this incompleteness? What visual cues suggest fragility or perhaps a latent unease beneath the surface order? The blurred edges? The emptiness around each form? This visual language resonates with anxieties about modern living, of losing one’s natural identity. It evokes a cultural memory, an echo of past landscapes now paved over, constrained. Editor: That's fascinating! I hadn’t thought of the incompleteness of the buildings in terms of anxiety, but that makes perfect sense given the dog’s implied freedom. So it’s less about what’s there and more about what’s missing? Curator: Precisely. Makov masterfully uses these stark contrasts, these absences, to conjure a psychological space. The dog and tree act as surrogates, vessels carrying potent symbolic weight. Editor: This really opens my eyes to the symbolism within what I initially perceived as just a cityscape! The cultural memory aspect is also powerful, highlighting a narrative of constant transition. Curator: Exactly. A picture held together through the image, memory, and metaphor of things seen.