Savin Oleh

Wars, ecology, genocide, murder, the pursuit of false values—humanity in large numbers has demonstrated its inability to exist. Difficult times provoke a desire to delve deeper into utopian thoughts. Humanity is incapable of building a truly harmonious society, and although it has achieved some intellectual progress, it awaits new paths for change, so that utopias cease to be unattainable.

“The Garden of Change” is a series of works featuring figurative depictions where the garden serves as a metaphor for the cyclical nature of life, growth, and the search for meaning. The heroes of the garden undergo metamorphoses, striving to free themselves from their accustomed understanding of the outer shell, only to re-examine their bodies and rebuild themselves anew. After external changes come internal ones, on the path to the desired evolution of consciousness. The process of evolution is complex and conditional; there is always the possibility of not returning from the world of distortions. One cannot ignore the danger that deformations may lead only to destruction, so the heroes of these works face a perilous journey filled with difficult decisions and conclusions.

In one body position or another, we read various emotions transmitted by the person. For example, we identify body language as open posture, closed posture, relaxed body, tense body. Similarly, we can quite accurately determine emotions: joy, sadness, anger, dreaminess, suffering, and so on. What if certain positions of the body, its plasticity could evoke those emotions that we cannot yet describe? Emotions or information that can undoubtedly be felt and read, but cannot be defined. For example, with abstract or surrealistic plots, one might sometimes hear an attempt to explain what is happening as “psychedelic” or that there is “transcendence” or “existentiality,” and so on. Such thoughts may be justified but tend to have a generalized, non-specific nature. For beneath the general explanation of “transcendence” of certain images, there may be quite specific feelings, just as concrete as joy or sadness. Perhaps these are feelings or a series of feelings that have not yet been named or defined. The distorted images of humans in “The Garden of Change” represent an attempt to find an image of a person who can convey some of these experiences, which we still need to comprehend.

In analyzing the works, not only the altered plasticity of the human body is considered, but also other information: images of plants, abstract elements, text, color, paint texture, and so forth. This, in sum, provides an even broader mix for the exploration of expanding the emotional spectrum of humanity through visual, sensory, and intellectual experience. In addition to revealing unexplored emotions, the visual experience can also aid in erasing patterns of perception, showing a person from an unexpected angle. In this way, it opens doors to metaphysical thinking, which will, in turn, be one of the keys to transitioning from external changes to internal ones.

The first cycle will conclude when a person completes the entire stage from gradual distortion of self to practically total loss of self as form, leading to the elimination of thought patterns, rethinking aesthetics, rethinking imposed societal norms, cultural norms, and other signs of automatic living. The second cycle will begin with a return from “The Garden of Change” in order to transition to internal changes, armed with the necessary experience of external changes.