Daria Koltsova 'As the Stars Fell on Me' as part of UKU Festival (Ukrainian Art Festival)

As the Stars Fell on Me
On the work of Daria Koltsova in the Newcomer KWS Art Lounge
 
The title that Ukrainian artist Daria Koltsova has given to her exhibition in the Newcomer KWS Art Lounge could not be more indicative of what the artist, born in 1987 in Kharkiv, experienced when Russia invaded her home country in February 2022. The sky fell over her. This had already been foreshadowed when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and invaded the Donbass shortly afterwards. But the fact that the sky literally exploded above her from the bombs that were fired at Koltsova's homeland and, in particular, at her native city of Kharkiv, which lies close to the border with Russia, and that the last illusions of a possible peaceful coexistence with the former brother nation of Russia were shattered, only came when the Russian soldiers openly invaded Ukraine in violation of international law.
 
What this war means for Koltsova and her compatriots to this day is reflected by the artist in her works, as it could not be otherwise given the existential threat it poses. They make it clear that from one day to the next, nothing was the same for Daria Koltsova. This is already expressed in the works that the young artist, Kaiserring scholarship holder for 2024, previously showed at the Mönchehaus Museum in Goslar. Under the title “Art and War” and the touching subtitle formulated by her, “Only loving this earth with unbending passion alleviates my sadness”. The latter refers to the fundamental shock and abysmal sadness about this war, but also emphasizes Koltsova's love for her homeland, which she shares with countless Ukrainians and which still gives them all the strength they need to resist the aggressor Russia.
 
In perhaps no other work by the artist is this as clear as in the “Camouflage” work previously exhibited in Goslar. A work in progress, which the artist has continued to work on for Einbeck. The work consists of oil paintings that the artist has painted and cut into strips, which she sews together in the form of a camouflage net. A net like the one that many Ukrainian women are making in a different form during the current war to protect themselves from Russian bombing raids. They use it to blend in with the landscape in terms of shape and color and to become invisible, so to speak, in order to protect themselves from enemy eyes. The net is simultaneously a symbol of attack and defense, aggression and resistance. Not unlike the bucket with the mop next to it. It contains “bullits”, cartridges made of delicate glass. Identical replicas of potentially deadly Russian ammunition. War is a job you can't avoid, the installation seems to say without pathos. Not even as an artist. It simply has to be done like daily housework, without questioning it too much.
 
The “Postcards from Home” can be seen right next to the camouflage net. Postcards in the form of stained glass windows. Koltsova discovered glass as an artistic medium for herself when she saw how compatriots in Donbass tried to protect their windows from the vibrations of detonating bombs with adhesive tape. She found it impressive how they told of the war without explicitly naming it. The adhesive strips also made her think of the stained glass of old windows. And so she soon reproduced the stripe formations in the form of stained glass windows. Also in the “Postcards from Home”, whose character as postcards is emphasized by the installation of stands. The colored lead glass works pay homage to landscapes in the Ukraine, some of which were destroyed beyond recognition by Russia during the war. There is a clear topographical reference in each work, which Koltsova has dissolved into abstractions of form and color. Into what the viewer remembers when the details of the concrete impressions have long been forgotten. Thus the postcards are ghostly revenants of long vanished landscapes, albeit in a strong and vital painterly colorfulness that seems indestructible.
 
Other works in the newcomer KWS Art Lounge are also reminiscent of the Ukrainian landscape. They were not on display in Goslar. One of them, with the impressively poetic title “In the Splendour of Fallen Suns”, is an installation made of steel and colored glass with an impressive height of 2.40 meters and a diameter of 1.40 meters. The glass was produced in the Soviet Union. It was used to depict victorious athletes, hard workers and courageous astronauts. For her work, Daria Koltsova has erased all these traces. Her installation is an abstract symphony of different shades of blue, in which she has placed a frieze of yellow and red tones. They are reminiscent of the different stages of a rising and setting sun. Once again, this work is a homage to the Ukraine, which is characterized by vast fields of fertile soil. The viewer's gaze travels across them into the distance, as if looking out over the sea and into an all-encompassing blue sky. Visitors enter the installation and leave it again after a short time. “You come and go,” is how Koltsova describes the process. A matter of course, but one that is symbolically condensed in the housing. A routine of becoming and passing away, living and dying, as is part of everyday life in the war in Ukraine. Which, however, is accepted there courageously and confidently, without surrendering to Russian aggression.
 
The sculptures that Daria Koltsova calls “Witnesses” are also reminiscent of the country. They bear witness to the famous fertility of the Ukrainian soil, in whose fields cheerful sunflowers and golden wheat grow. Fields that stretch to the horizon and bear witness to the richness of the land. A wealth that has repeatedly aroused the covetousness of Ukraine's neighbors throughout its history. The artist's sunflower sculptures made of steel and black glass are wonderful abstractions of haunting beauty. At the same time, they are filled with deep sadness. Sadness about what is being done to them when the Russians burn down the sunflower and wheat fields in this war. As visitors, we see ourselves reflected in them; they hold us for the moment, so to speak. And thus demonstrate how much we are affected by what is currently happening in Ukraine. Daria Koltsova's steles made of white cement and black glass also bear witness to this country, with their convincingly stylized form of an ear of wheat. Every now and then, golden flowers shine out from the inflorescences of black glass. They could not be clearer as a sign of hope that things will not remain as they are. The artist's optimistic message is that one day, hopefully in the near future, golden wheat will grow again from the scorched earth.
 
This hope is also nourished by the work “Bird” in the neighborhood. The bright colors of the glass work set a life-affirming chord against the dark minor of the sunflowers. Yet the circumstances that led to this sculpture could not be sadder. A young Ukrainian poet, who did not survive his Russian imprisonment, wrote a lost novel, of which we know through one of his letters. It was entitled “Bird as a Soul” and inspired Daria Koltsova's work. The bird served the poet not only as a symbol of freedom, but also as a symbol of the soul. A poetic idea that is also alive in ancient myths and tales. They are familiar with the “soul bird” that lives within us and accompanies us, flying away with our soul in death to a beautiful, light-filled afterlife. There is something eminently comforting about that. And it definitely eludes the arbitrariness of autocrats, for whom the very concept of the soul has something rebellious about it.
 
M. S.