How are you ?

„Как си“, 2015, 13:25

„Дупки“, 2017, 8:43 мин

Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova
How are you?

One-time screening of the videos: “How are you”, 2015, 13:25 min and “Holes”, 2017, 8:43 min
In Bulgarian language with English subtitles

July 4^th, 2019, Thursday, 9:00pm
Structura Gallery, 9, Kuzman Shapkarev, Sofia

Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova’s presence in the artistic landscape is both strong and unobtrusive. Her appearances are not frequent and always dictated by deep inner motives. Her attitude to making art is utterly honest and idealistic.

Very often, especially in recent years, her projects have been related to specific events and personal stories. The painful honesty and the depth of the experience are a test for the viewer. However, the artist does not remain on the surface of the situation, but manages to produce beautiful and complex metaphors about life and its winding paths.

In the two videos that are shown for the first time in public: “How are you”,2015, 13:25 min and “Holes”, 2017, 8:43 min, Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova shares her personal experience. The sad tales of past years have been translated into poetic stories, such as an attempt to cope and look for escape. The artist tests different therapies – from traditional beliefs through pagan rites to foreign superstitious, trying to find a key to grief through repetitive actions and various activities. Destruction of the testimonies of these “184 megabytes of pain and despair” does not help, but the energy needs to be spent. The patient, insistent and desperately filling in holes in the one hundred-year-old wall, is in fact an expression of the frantic aspiration to regain the lost integrity of the soul. Optimism alternates with sadness and brutal sobriety. “I need, I can, I will continue” is confronted with the every-day, life-long battle of overcoming life’s obstacles.