Untitled 1989

Curator: It feels rather somber, doesn't it? Like a storm cloud distilled onto this modest panel. Editor: Indeed. We’re looking at an “Untitled” piece by Oleg Holosiy, created in 1989. The materiality is striking – thick impasto strokes in oil paint that demand our attention. What can you tell us about Holosiy? Curator: Holosiy emerged from the Ukrainian art scene amid Perestroika, a period of significant political and cultural upheaval. This abstraction, while seemingly devoid of explicit narrative, speaks volumes about the era's anxieties and uncertainties. I see this application of matter, this thick impasto, as reflecting the dense materiality of Soviet life itself, a life increasingly recognised as something heavy and oppressive. Editor: An interesting take. My initial impulse, observing the arrangement of colors, leads me to focus more on the interplay between the dark, almost violent, browns and blacks and the few traces of reds, pinks, and browns breaking the mass. The horizontal nature of the brushstrokes is very forceful, lending the picture this oppressive feel that you're pointing to. Curator: I find it compelling to consider Holosiy’s positionality – his identity, the politics of his time – and how those elements inevitably seep into even the most abstract expression. How the sheer process of mark-making might serve as a defiant act. To me it echoes similar gestures that come to define an art movement of resistance. Editor: And you consider this simply gestural painting a 'defiant act'? Curator: Holosiy rejected Soviet socialist realism to produce something personal during a historical era of change, right on the cusp of Ukrainian independence. What could be more defiant than that? Editor: Perhaps it also defies representation itself? After all, a complete break with representation may result not in something socially liberating, but a purely internal language available only to the artist himself. I still think it compelling as pure painting; perhaps a new mode of pictorial language is beginning right here. Curator: Regardless, the painting’s ambiguity is its strength. It captures the complexities of a society undergoing a profound transformation. And even now, as a Ukrainian, seeing the dark tones brings an understanding that speaks across decades. Editor: A powerfully emotive abstraction then, as much felt as it is observed. Curator: Exactly. A visual embodiment of the unspoken tensions simmering beneath the surface. Editor: And, through our contrasting lenses, one offering something formally considered while the other delivers the politically embodied context of our own historic present.