22 November 2008 - 31 January 2009
Exhibition open Wednesday - Saturday, 3 - 8 pm
Gallery festive closure 21 December 2008 - 6 January 2009

ARC Projects presents a solo show of new work by Sofia based artist Alla Georgieva. Originally from Ukraine, Georgieva is mainly known for her photography and video work. For this show, the artist has returned to painting after a decade exploring other media.

Conceived especially for ARC Projects the exhibition tests the boundaries of the concept of love. In this case, we see love through ‘invading’ the privacy of the infamous dictators Lenin, Stalin and Hitler. The use of classical painting techniques is a conscious reference to the aesthetics of the period from the 1930s to the 1950s, when these political figures were at the height of their power. The artist recreates her characters with a romantic ambience, depicting supposedly intimate scenes in hues of blue and pink. In doing so, Georgieva skirts along the edges of kitsch, and borrows decor and compositional devices from popular culture.

Picture postcards popular in most European cities at the beginning of the 20th Century are the starting point for the style of this show. An avid collector of such ephemera, the artist seeks inspiration in these fragments of personal correspondence from young people from an earlier era.

“These love letters were written at a time when a political wave replaced individual liberty with the ideals of the collective, both in the Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany", says Georgieva. "My exhibition attempts to reveal personal love dramas, carried on almost oblivious of the devastating history unfolding between 1917 and the 1950s. This was the period when each of these despots were practising their ‘great loves’, whether for the homeland in the case of Hitler; Stalin's for the people; or Lenin's for the Revolution. Their ‘major achievements’ include the exile or death of millions."

Vladimir, Joseph and Adolf resurface in Georgieva’s paintings as romantic lovers, loving fathers and tender husbands seen with their "better halves": the lovers, and wives of these great tyrants. The contradiction between their public personas and these fictionalised 'private' ones serves as a form of camouflage. Simple, straightforward sentimentality in the scenes depicted alludes to the redemptive call of the dictators' traumatisied subconscious.

Georgieva’s project of painting "beyond history" carries a resonance for the present, these times when carefully stage managed "private lives" of political figures are portrayed by our media, further blurring the fast disappearing divide between public and private spheres.