By Maria Bregman, a London-based artwork critic, author, and curator. She has curated solo exhibitions for Zurab Tsereteli, president of a number one nationwide academy of arts, and her criticism has been printed in retailers reminiscent of ArtCulture.UK, Creativity’s UK, and worldwide editions of ELLE, Cosmopolitan and Esquire. A member of a number of skilled writers’ and journalists’ unions, her personal literary work has been recognised with a number of worldwide awards.
Mixing the boundaries of visible and literary artwork, Olga Puzikova designs areas of artwork the place the mundane realities of life intersect with the hidden magic of life.
Within the scene depicted in Olga Puzikova’s “The sky is blue.” (2026), a person is seen in haste strolling previous a stark and recognizable condominium block. He holds a espresso cup and is bent over in his haste to face no matter unseen burden awaits him in his morning commute. But floating above the pavement, unseen by the person in his haste, two cherubs blow trumpets into the chilly air. To grasp the scene correctly, nevertheless, one should step to the facet of the canvas. There, in archaic script alongside the facet of the canvas itself, is written: “Halt thee, abide some time, solid thine eyes round… behold, and draw thy breath deep.” This isn’t solely a requirement upon the viewer however is itself emblematic of Puzikova’s journey as an artist. Born in Samara and at present residing in Dubai, Puzikova’s work is marked by the large displacement of immigration and the non-public displacement of motherhood. These sorts of tectonic shifts in life usually serve to cleave an artist’s work in two. For Puzikova, nevertheless, it appears to have distilled it into one thing extra important. Having moved away from extra broadly hopeful work, Puzikova’s extra present work is marked by melancholy.
Whereas shifting away from earlier, maybe extra broadly optimistic imagery, she has created an area of melancholic reflection. Her classical coaching is the scaffolding for what has turn out to be a deeply conceptual, nearly literary exploration of human fragility.
This narrative layering is taken to new depths in “Enigmatic Metropolis” (2025). Right here, the story of Saint Gerasimos and the lion is enacted on a cotton stage. The imagery is subdued, barely surreal, and theatrical, maybe paying homage to an artist reminiscent of Marcel Dzama, whereas the usage of textual content is paying homage to Moscow Conceptualism. Puzikova’s use of archaic English is a part of her technique of estrangement. By wrapping her pictures in phrases reminiscent of “concern not, nor be thou dismayed, for thou artwork not alone,” she creates an area between herself and our informal, throwaway use of language. The phrases have the load of incantation, and we’re compelled right into a gradual and regarded consumption of the picture.
There’s a comparable resonance right here to the usage of textual content over conventional type as deployed by Grayson Perry to look at trendy morality, though there’s a sense during which Puzikova’s work is extra existentially involved than sociologically.
Her collection “Questions and Solutions” grapples with the ethical and religious weight of recent life. In “As soon as on the Museum,” the writing across the edges of the piece discusses the fixed strategy of “’twixt reality and falsehood, ’twixt religion and forsaking.” It’s a heavy subject material, however it’s introduced in a surprisingly mild method.
In her extra representational work, reminiscent of “Catcher. (Might the seeker be heard).” or “Between Hope and Despair,” there’s a stillness and magic to her depictions of landscapes and solitary figures that reminds one of many work of Peter Doig in his extra ethereal moments. A lone boat, a ladder leaning towards a mysterious terrain; it’s archetypal subject material stripped of its grandeur and left with solely its longing.
Puzikova’s present collection of labor might not scream for consideration in a crowded room. It waits as an alternative for these keen to take a look at it obliquely, to observe the writing across the edges of the canvases, and to see the hidden angels with their trumpets within the margins of our busy world.
By Maria Bregman, a London-based artwork critic, author, and curator. She has curated solo exhibitions for Zurab Tsereteli, president of a number one nationwide academy of arts, and her criticism has been printed in retailers reminiscent of ArtCulture.UK, Creativity’s UK, and worldwide editions of ELLE, Cosmopolitan and Esquire. A member of a number of skilled writers’ and journalists’ unions, her personal literary work has been recognised with a number of worldwide awards.
