Kodlobskaya’s painting is a definite homage to the Russian avant-garde of the early part of the 20th century. However, she rejects those dynamics of the avant-garde which reflect the social upheaval. Her work is static, monumental, laconic and devoid of narrative. Hers is a well-established, even stagnating world of familiar objects which it might be time to blow up. No wonder the objects are covered in red while the black outlines can hardly retain their shape in the paintings.

This series of pictures is a throwback to the Pop Art of the 1950s and 1960s in its vision of everyday things as objects of desire. Koldovskaya’s sign paintings are sensual and their creation is downright violent. The issue here is whether or not to buy. What is at stake is begetting, giving birth, killing, eating. In her inanimate objects something biomorphic can be discerned: a mesh of capillaries, twisted brains, a cluster of fish eggs, vagina slices, phallic-shaped obelisks.

Yet the source of her inspiration is the archaic and primitive world of the first hunter who drew a beast on the wall of a cave or that of a child who is discovering everything for the first time.

The artist expresses herself using various techniques to present her “wild” art, each time finding new ways of embodying it in the material she is working with. What starts as canvas and cardboard with brightly coloured objects and animals develops into a large mural painting. She can transform an old cupboard, doors, windows into art or she can express it in ceramics, decorating plates, cups or bowls. Her autograph is boldly signed with a bright and impressive brush-stroke. This artist is not embarrassed about working on the edge of kitsch, combining festive elegance, playfulness and a willingness to please with a tireless and almost scientific concentration on creating new images that will sooner later inevitably add up to one gigantic alphabet.

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Gleb Yershov