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February 11, 2011
The outskirts on view
Medvedovsky’s art revels in the “in between.”
OLGA LIVSHIN
Some artists are entrenched in reality; others, in fantasy. Vitaly Medvedovsky has found his muse somewhere in between, in the enigmatic universe of make-believe, where people are bigger than buses, fairy-tale characters converse with space ships and mythological creatures have human faces. The recently opened exhibition of Medvedovsky’s work – called Tales from the Outskirts – introduces viewers to these, and other, unique creations.
The paintings arrived at Vancouver’s Winsor Gallery from Berlin, Germany, where Medvedovsky has lived for the last year. Before that, he lived with his family in Montreal, where he completed his master’s of fine art at Concordia University, in 2009. Before Montreal, his family lived in Israel and, before that, in Ukraine, where the young artist was born in 1981.
About his career choice, Medvedovsky said in an interview with the Independent, “It always seemed to be a given that art was what I’ll do. I never really thought seriously about doing anything else.”
Interestingly, however, it was a music teacher who set him on his artistic path. “Music was the reason I started with painting in the first place,” said Medvedovsky. “When I was six, my parents signed me up for a community school that had drawing classes and a choir. I went to the choir first, sang for about three seconds, and the teacher told me to go draw.”
He did as he was told, and has been drawing and painting ever since. That was how he ended up in Berlin.
“Berlin now is probably what Paris used to be at the end of 19th century; the contemporary art scene is enormous here, with a lot of good art being made,” he said. “I’ve been interested in German painters for a while. Some, like Neo Rauch and Matthias Weischer, have been brought up and educated in East Germany, but their mature works are a strange mixture of traditional and contemporary tendencies, which is something that I’m interested in as well. I was lucky enough to win the Joseph Plaskett Award in 2009, which is given out every year to one Canadian painter who has just completed an MFA degree, to give them a chance to spend a year in Europe, to further their art practice. What to do with this year is pretty much up to the individual artist.... I decided to base myself here [in Berlin] and to concentrate on painting.”
Medvedovsky’s paintings are contemplative and surreal, each one a conduit for questions. “My paintings are an attempt to construct imaginary spaces that intertwine autobiographical elements with references to history and mythology, as a way of dealing with issues of memory and displacement. But there is an overall theme ... it’s a sort of a fake autobiography, half-real, half-imagined ... a mixture of fact and fiction....”
Ruins of cities and technology and the remnants of his childhood echo through Medvedovsky’s images, as lands and oceans blend together on the canvases. In every piece, he strives to uncover his identity, his place in the world, and the heroes of his visual narratives join him in his quest. Their road is not an easy one, as the alternative reality of the paintings doesn’t treat its citizens to easy answers.
Although the artist often starts his work with a photograph, the end result has no resemblance to its roots. It expands through multiple layers, “with each layer adding to, subtracting from or altering the original concept, until the piece resolves itself in a satisfactory way ... like a metaphor of memory,” he explained.
In his ambiguous landscapes of memory and fantasy, Medvedovsky, like his characters, is trying to orient himself, to find a way. In “The Old Bathtub,” three companions travel in an old bathtub across the foggy ether – from where are they coming? A dinosaur struggles through the industrial graveyard in “The Mountain” – how did it survive? A sad, lonely man breaks his trip in the middle of a desolate plateau in “The Trip” – where does he go from there? Perhaps the three-faced giant from “The Meeting” knows the directions?
While three different countries – the Soviet Union, Israel and Canada – have shaped Medvedovsky’s art, only one, Canada, became his home.
“My Canadian connection is reflected in the search for identity, which is probably a typical im migrant experience at one point or another,” Medvedovsky explained. “My paintings were a lot more nostalgic a few years ago, but ... my work is no longer just about Kharkov, Ukraine, circa 1987, but about memory and identity in general.... I don’t have to choose between being Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish or Canadian. I can just be a bit of everything at the same time. I think Canada is one of the few places in the world where this kind of ‘in betweenness’ is perfectly acceptable.”
Tales from the Outskirts is at the Winsor Gallery until March 5.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She’s available for contract work. Contact her at [email protected].
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