The Adaptation Diary

The Adaptation Diary presents two fundamental points to Olena Pronkina’s work. From the beginning, she draws us in with captivating large-format paintings of extracted anthropomorphic parts and human heads, accompanied by ceramic forms throughout the exhibition. As viewers, we observe unknown speechless faces in a deep state of trance, in hibernation, in sleep, dreaming or experiencing a terrifying nightmare. However, internally, they are united by the bond of jointly experienced events and uncertain destinies. In intimate paintings, we get deeper into Olena’s subconscious, in which scenes from her real life intertwine with parallel dream worlds. Subdued colours, a refined painting technique reminiscent of an Italian fresco and suggestive environments or compositions will attract our curiosity with positive anticipation. Melancholy-emptied faces, indistinct relational ties and the inquisitively, even longingly lengthening limbs of the monumental shapeless figures indicate the experience of other stories. Violent loss of home, uprootedness, grief, and attributes of globalization that bear little resemblance to a familiar home mingle in this emotional-visual diary of adaptation to a new environment. OLENA PRONKINA (*1988) is interested in figurativeness primarily through anthropomorphism, namely, through a person. For her, it is an inexhaustible source of visual options for creating worlds and finding a place for yourself in these worlds. Since 2014 she has participated in several solo and group exhibitions and residencies in Ukraine and Europe. In May 2022 Olena Pronkina received a stipend from the German art institution Kunstverein Ost (KVOST) in Berlin. She became the first recipient to receive the Claus Michaletz Preis offered by the Secco Pontanova Foundation. This residency is supported by the Creative Europe programme. The residency program is supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council. The residency is organized in collaboration with Meet Factory in the Czech Republic, hablarenarte: in Spain and Visual Culture Research Center, in Ukraine.