Layers is an artwork dedicated to the exploration of the relationship between the inner and the outer sides of objects.

Featured in the film are impenetrable black monoliths that gradually reveal their true nature. Stiff and distant at first sight, monuments turn out to be vivid and intriguing as they get cut through by invisible shapes. Out of black forms appear contrasting blue, purple, green, and yellow layers all of a sudden—they form a dynamic structure, emerging from inside and vanishing from sight again.

Year:
2018

Selected screenings:
Big Screen Plaza - New York, USA, 2019
FILE Festival - São Paulo, Brazil, 2019

For more information and images:
Press Kit

Cut with extreme preciseness, internal shapes seem to spread over monuments' surfaces, and through this interference, the sculptures transcend their initial state. On the intersections of internal and external, new forms appear as the objects of artist's study open to the wave of energy from the outside and transform into disparately intricate forms. With this newly revealed system of connections and influences, monuments seem to acquire new dimensions and become portals into parallel universes, hypnotizing and full of energy and potential.

One by one, Zhestkov dissects bodies of different shapes with the same deep blue abyss inside. As the last sculpture, the sphere, opens out, a hidden nucleus inside of it comes to light, as a symbol of evolvement that these monuments undergo.

The spherical shape does not just conceal an obscure element: it exists in a continuous transformation, as its layers alter their color, dynamically modifying themselves. Spheres hold a special place in Zhestkov's body of work as the most balanced shape and a universal object that represents a shape purified from additional meanings, so its final majestic appearance is far from accidental.

Layers stands out from the rest of Maxim's works, as its narrative is built not around the interactions of systems of particles but rather around large solid monuments. With this new realm of his artistic practice, Zhestkov explores the theme of interconnectedness and goes further in his exploration of universal forces and laws of nature. Finding imperceptible complexity in the habitual reality, the artist expands his continuum of curiosity by looking behind the familiar patterns of perception and trying to see things without the unconsciously inherited labels.

MAXIM ZHESTKOV

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