Science and art come together under the inventive hand of GeorgII Uvs in Full Circle: The Beauty of Inevitability. A student of geology gone explorer of the fine arts, his vibrant work reflects the relationship between fields many a time introduced as strangers to one another. The common ground where they meet is chance – the ultimate, the inevitable binding/bending master.
Denis Stolyarov writes on Uvs work: “Painting is always the result of interaction between the artist and the material. Artists decides for themselves to what extent they try to control the process: whether they seek to subjugate the matter, or they help it to realise the potential contained in it, without consciously resisting it. The element of chance is inevitable. The artist plays the role of a conductor, trying to channel the energy of participants in the desired direction.”
Uvs first solo exhibition in the UK is composed of four series of oil paintings. These are the result of a practice the artist has been developing and refining for decades, compositions that initially appear to be consequence of an inspiring flair but then reveal thorough and exhaustive devising.
Playing with different levels of viscosity and liquidity, as well as ultraviolet reactive pigments, Uvs manipulates the paint from underneath the canvas, having no actual contact with it. Though the artist leads, whether by using tools of his invention or by simply holding the canvas and directing the trail of paint, the dance that follows has a rhythm that transcends him.
As the layers dry out, sometimes taking up to four years due to various levels of viscosity, texture mutates under heat, light and gravity. The collision between art and nature, the key to Uvs’ artistic vision, then happens, the pieces interacting with the environment, with chance, and becoming.
The artist says: “It is a beauty that is full of secrets, containing certain mysteries but that are transitory and therefore finite. A beauty that consists of many layers, each one offering a different vision to the viewers based on their personal experiences, knowledge and perception of life and changes.”
At first there is Mesozoic, what was before what now is. Then there is Genesis, the assembly of elements, the spread of nothings becoming dense points of everything, bursting into Codes that inevitably birth Wings – the beginning of the universe under a microscope. Having worked for many years in figurative art, these works were born from a strong desire, maybe even an impulse, to invent something new.
The light changes, the pigments respond to its call and morph as they please, glowing as if proud of hosting the meaning of life itself amidst their vivid colours. There is a shift in the energy, a secretive conversation appears to have been taking place beyond what one could see at first glance. Viewers emerge as participants and are invited to look closer, further.
These beautifully detailed paintings which were created in Malta between 2014 and 2017 using the artistic language closest to the artist’s heart can be experienced at the Saatchi Gallery until February 3rd 2019.
Words by Maria Mendes.
Full Circle: The Beauty of Inevitability is at Saatchi Gallery until February 3rd. For more information, please visit Saatchi Gallery.
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