As he often said himself, Fedorenko likes to play with words. Our exhibition retraces his contrasting life as a “painter” and echoes the artist’s acrobatic use of words.
At the Chapelle des Ursulines, the exhibition is not a retrospective, nor is it just about painting. Painting, as the artist defines it, embraces all plastic forms and is not limited to the simple canvas or paper but includes printmaking, sculpture, ceramics… And the exhibition is not about a finite career either. Fedorenko presents a new artwork specially created for the exhibition, Incertitude, a key element combining all the artist’s practices as a powerful synthesis of a creative journey.
A lifetime’s journey is primarily one of constant learning, when influences of the masters of the past and artistic experimentation driven by the zeitgeist come together, and when the artist confronts the material, be it paint, wood, clay or metal. As with the classics, Fedorenko’s painting is telling a story but is never limited to literal or biblical or other narration. He composes his own language around his themes, using signs and objects to capture the beholder’s eye and speak to him about the time we live in.
Switching from abstraction to figuration, the artist’s view of the world is ever more radical, whether outwardly or covertly.
The visitor will take as proof Incertitude, the exhibition’s central masterpiece, which has hatched at the Ursulines after an incubation period of over ten years. Fedorenko isn’t teaching any lessons, but you’ll have to admit on viewing the exhibition that art is both perilous and delightful, because it cannot ignore the world as it is.