The Exhibition: "Breathing Substance of Art" Curated by Valentina Shaeva
Artists: Svenlana Maksimenko Gleb Skubachevsky
Dates and Venue:
15–30 April 2025
11:00–19:00
Russian Art Center in London, 7 Kensington Mall, London W8 4EB
Instagram: @russian_art_center
www.russianartcenterinlondon.com
russianartcenter@gmail.com
+44 738 447 19 13
At Russian Art Center in London, Breathing Substance of Art brings together two artists, Svetlana Maksimenko and Gleb Skubachevsky, in an encounter where art seems to take on a physical breath. Curator Valentina Shaeva has arranged their works so that they speak to each other—sometimes in whispers, sometimes in full voice, and at moments in open argument.
Maksimenko works with the fragile boundary between reality and illusion. In her Transition AI series, the digital realm becomes a strange mirror where reflections appear more real than we do ourselves. Her canvases read like visual essays on how technology and cultural codes rewrite our understanding of authenticity. This is painting that slows you down, forcing you to notice the exact moment you stopped trusting your own eyes.
Skubachevsky, on the other hand, expands painting into physical space, incorporating three-dimensional paper elements that literally break past the edge of the canvas. His works are both fragile and aggressive, like living organisms caught mid-evolution. They tease the viewer—inviting you closer, then pushing you back with a cold, deliberate elegance.
But the true architect of this meeting is Valentina Shaeva. Her curatorial work is not just about selecting pieces, but about building a route in which the viewer becomes part of an almost breathing rhythm. Every artwork is an inhale or an exhale, a shift from tension to silence, from dense materiality to near-weightlessness. Shaeva has created a space where the artists retain their individuality yet become part of a single organism. And that organism is the exhibition itself—alive, mutable, and changing with every gaze.The exhibition invites viewers to interact: each object is not just a static work, but an impulse, a movement, a sensation. Visitors will be able to feel how art breathes, changes and reacts, turning the process of perception into a dialogue.