Luka Basov
(born 1993) is Ukrainian artist, who lives and works in Kyiv. He studied at the Faculty of Monumental Painting, workshop of M. Storozhenko and the Faculty of Fine Arts in Painting at the National Academy of Fine Arts, and also graduated from the Course of Contemporary Art, Kyiv Academy of Media Arts. Working with the mediums of painting, graphics, and film photography, he is interested in the phenomena of violence, death and foreboding, as well as in corporeality in images and ways of its representation. Among his recent exhibitions are Tree after tree, Asortymentna kimnata, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine (2023), Garden after the Gods, JUMP Contemporary Art Gallery, Poltava, Ukraine (2021), To Live Together, The Naked Room gallery, Kyiv, Ukraine (2019).
Emergency Exit into My Dream
2022-2023,
acrylic on paper
In his artistic practice, Luca Basov explores the phenomena of violence, death, and foreboding, as well as corporeality in images and ways of its representation. He started the Emergency Exit into My Dream series during his stay at Sorry, No Rooms Available Residency in Uzhhorod shortly after the start of the full-scale invasion. A portrait from the back, a neck, a torso, and the interior of a hotel corridor are a series of images that are not directly related to each other. Yet, they express a state of ambiguity similar to a dream. In the viewer’s imagination, they can become stories and arbitrary interpretations, keep you in suspense, and cut off before the end. By comprehending the traumatic experience of war and the inevitable changes in the perception of the surrounding reality it brings, the artist addresses our subconscious fears and experiences, where the feeling of a hidden threat migrates with us even to spaces of safety.
Sorry No Rooms Available
October 8–November 12
Where Are We Now, After All Those Endlessly Repeated Words?
Curated by Petro Ryaska, Daria Shevtsova
