Roman Road is pleased to present Paradise Is Not Just a Place, an exhibition by artists Yulia Iosilzon and Anna Skladmann. The exhibition will feature a selection of Iosilzon’s latest paintings and ceramics and Skladmann’s photography. To attend the Paradise Is Not Just a Place opening on 16 September please email info@romanroad.com.

 

Opening: Thursday 16 September, 6 – 9 PM

Exhibition: Friday 17 September – Saturday 06 November 2021

Location: 69 Roman Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 0QW

We are thrilled to share with you all the photography series This Could be Us by Yulia Lebedeva, accompanied with a text written for the project. Yulia has just finished her residency with Roman Road at The Columbia. Her works will be exhibited during the residency group show Still Journey in September. Stay tuned for more information!

Yulia Lebedeva This could be us: Provence, 2021 

Yulia Lebedeva This could be us: Santorini, 2021 

Yulia Lebedeva This could be us: St Tropez, 2021 

 

This could be us

 

Appropriating the stylistics of postcards, Lebedeva muses on what people now need to feel happy and connected. This could be us is translating our natural yearning to connect with people from our past, present and future. It picks up on words that have not been spoken yet and invites you into a made-up holiday that you almost feel like you have taken with your friend or lover. 

 

The project consists of carefully curated leisurely visuals that are reminiscent of holiday cliches that have been elevated to an art form with a slight patina of decadence, that the current visual social media culture has ascended upon us. 

 

No longer just a term of opprobrium for mannered art or immoral behaviour, decadence today describes complex cultural and social responses to modernity in all its forms. 

 

Shaw M (2019) Decadence and the Urban Sensibility. In: Desmarais J & Weir D (eds.) Decadence and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 82-97.

 

Each visual is titled in a holiday kitsch font with the corresponding locations that are not their actual locations yet are presented as very much believable lies. The moments themselves are borderline lies as well. The vibrant photographs capture beautiful, almost too perfect, moments that would not have existed had they not been photographed by the artist. It is real, yet it is fake. This penetrates the idea of people living parallel lives through the carefully curated and conceptually approved photographs that illustrate a prosperous and carefree life, which does not necessarily correspond to the actual offscreen image of us.

 

Each postcard is signed by hand by the artist on reverse, with the intimate message for the receiver, thus inviting us to participate in the artist’s lie. There are no faces portrayed apart from artists’ own, creating an intimate feeling as if indeed, this could be you and her about to embark on this journey. 

 

 

This journey invitation comes just at the right moment as many are still affected by the pandemic in so many aspects of our lives. Lebedeva’s exceptional cheerful and escapist execution tone is exactly what we need after almost two years of bleakness and uncertainty.

Yulia Lebedeva

What’s something you want to work on next? 

 

“It’s going to be a book, a lifestyle coffee table  book, about leisure and elevating leisure to an art form. I really believe that leisure is the future. We are doing less and less manual work, finding automated substitutions for it, the ultimate idea is to arrive at the place where you work less. It’ll be an accumulation of my visuals featuring all things leisure and hedonistic strives, exploring the personal commodities of my modern day muses. My subjects are always people that I know: it’s personal. I do see them as sublime goddesses, I really like the idea of elevating women and making them feel better about themselves. Even though there is a bit of decadence in the photos I think it’s done with humour — a good kind of decadence. I think it’s ok to enjoy life and I want people to feel at peace with themselves. Even though most of my work involves people, I don’t think it is direct portraits of them, it is rather situational photography that translates  my excitement and vision of that particular moment.”

 

Photo: Photograph from Yulia Lebedeva’s Goddess series. Follow @ylebedeva to learn more about their practice.

 

Juls Gabs

How would you describe the aesthetic of your work? 

 

“I would say it comes from the digital era: Google, Pinterest, Netflix mixed with the London Art Scene. The subjects are contemporary topics that are shaping our world: diversity, queer, equality, black lives matters… among others. The composition comes from traditional paintings, I am especially influenced by Romanticism and Pre-Raphaelite movements. However, my palette belongs to the digital world: pastels from Tumblr and fluorescent from Windows Paint. My digital experience does not stop at the colours, I create Virtual Reality environments in all of my paintings. This is a realm that not only allows me to expand my imagery and to stretch the concepts, but ultimately it contrasts this ideal painting with the world that we all live in.”

 

Photo: close-up from “Evasions of the Psyche” by Juls Gabs. Follow @julsgabs to see more of their practice.

 

Bex Massey

Have you used the residency to try something new in your work?

 

“Yes, I’m using the residency to look at expanding the depth of field in my paintings. Before I embarked on these three months my work had a much flatter aesthetic and would probably be best described as ‘Pop Art’. Likewise, due to the relatively short time frame I have also changed my process as this tenure would usually only establish the research phase of a given project. I am therefore using my Instagram story archive as my image library and have created an algorithm to select which date I tackle. I am also mimicking the Instagram story ratio via stretcher dimensions. This is the first time I have worked with such a narrow canvas, and it is certainly making the expanded landscape much trickier to assimilate. Exploring my ‘virtual’ connectivity since the outbreak of Covid 19 and National Lockdown’s has also been a shift in theme as my work usually discusses intersectional feminist issues. Although exploring our isolation and diminishing mental health since the pandemic feels like a pertinent departure at present.”

 

Photo: zoom-in shot of a work-in-progress by Bex Massey. Follow @masseybex to see more of their practice.

 

Ben Cullen Williams

Where do you find your inspiration and how do you stay motivated during the restricted period? 

 

“I find my inspiration from walking, looking, traveling, observing cities and the natural landscapes. I’m interested in reading technological and scientific studies, questioning the relationship between what I see, what I read and how they link. My compulsion is to just make, I’ve got to be constantly making things, a desire or need to be constantly making. Through making it helps me understand the world and understand aspects of the world in a conscious or subconscious way.”

 

Photo: prototype of a work-in-progress by Ben Cullen Williams. Follow @bencullenwilliams to learn more about their practice.

 

Ariane Hughes

Have you adapted to the theme of human connectivity in your work to respond to the residency?

 

“I guess I have because I’ve gone through the archive in my camera roll and chosen images of people in my life, or used images they have taken of me to develop my current work. I would say it’s more about  ‘Lost Connections’ with people in my life, its personal to me. Another element is the digital age, in relation to that I wanted to look at the digital image, across a few of the images I’ve made I’ve blurred the image to make it look like film stills, or to make it look like a moving image- the loading image. In recent year my work has always been in focus, this is softer impressionate approach.”

 

Photo: zoom-in shot of a work-in-progress by Ariane Hughes. Follow @arianehughes to learn more about their practice.