Julia Kuzina: Mystical Pop Surrealism and Beyond
Author: Jenya Stashkov, art critic
Contemporary surrealism represents a wide range of artistic phenomena. The surrealist brand unites visionary artists, spiritual seekers, eccentric freaks, imitators of Dali and Kahlo, and those who expand the boundaries of contemporary surrealism. The latter avoid cliches and look for their artistic language in this genre and visual tradition. The most interesting contemporary surrealists are engaged in the synthesis of surrealist techniques with something seemingly incompatible.
Julia Kuzina is an excellent example of an outstanding contemporary surrealist artist. She masterfully combines professional visual skills, boundless imagination, and aesthetic integrity in her works. She expands the boundaries of contemporary surrealism through the conversion and reinvention of the image of a sad, sickly girl (a cross-cutting character) and by placing this character in the context of high mysticism. The main plot of the artist’s works is the confrontation between rough, limited, and painful physical reality and the boundless, cold Platonic world of ideas. The first world is a naked, wounded, exhausted, melancholic albino girl. The second world is her environment. The first world is limited by pain and physicality. The second world is limited by its ephemerality. The intersection of these worlds creates acute aesthetic and dramatic tension. The first world is always emotionally charged.The girl expresses a wide range of emotions: indifference, fatigue, embarrassment, and curiosity. The second world exists only as a disembodied decoration for a painful, frail consciousness.
Although Julia uses the style of pop-gothic, her work is deeper and more multifaceted than the usual subcultural network art. She consciously uses elements of high mysticism—snow-white archetypal animals, timeless and extra-spatial setting, compositional mise en scene referring to the traditions of Western marginal spirituality (from gnosticism to exotic mediaeval monastic orders). However, this does not make her work speculatively complex or overloaded with details. Her works are distinguished by a restrained colour scheme (the confrontation of white and red) and deft minimalism. Also, Julia’s paintings are not devoid of humor. However, this is shifter humour or trickster humor. Place a suffering being in a fantastical book situation to create comedy.The literary reference becomes as absurd as possible, which creates a situation of involuntary nervous laughter.
Julia Kuzina’s worlds seem to exist in the space between surrealism and magazine illustration, radical art and soft art, graphics for teenagers and graphics for people capable of reading mystical ciphers. This is a strategy for escaping from certainty and from self-identification. It seems to me that this strategy holds a powerful key to the inner freedom of the artist.
I warmly recommend following the work of Julia Kuzina. She is a really interesting and talented contemporary surrealist artist with international recognition. Her works have been exhibited in many countries around the world (USA, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, Taiwan, Australia, and Russia). She expands the stylistic and plot boundaries of contemporary surrealism, and we are grateful to her for this!
You can find the works of Julia Kuzina at the following links:
