Elena Berkovich - 'Mirrors & Windows'

Wednesday 27 February - Sunday 10 March 2019

These works relate to supporting someone with depression.

You wanted to talk about it, damn it. You wanted to scream. You wanted to yell. You wanted to shout about it. But all you could do was whisper I’m fine... If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.

Elena Berkovich has intentionally ignored the realistic representation of a portrait to investigate other aspects of the physical form in an abstract and symbolic form of expression, projecting a metaphysical state and allowing herself to serve imaginative results. Reduced imaginary and flat areas distinguish most of her portraits. Some of them are emphasised in luscious surfaces such as Perspex where the shadows play an integral role in the works as they add further formal complexity to the portrait’s mood. She has attempted to infuse these portraits with a melancholic beauty, the arrangement of these is expressive: the place occupied by the figures, the empty spaces around them, the proportions, everything has its share.

Even though they are abstract, they all show the psychological state of the model. Her instinct is to develop works in an opaque but warm environment and at the same time with clarity, exploring compositions, these are painted from feelings, fears and thoughts. Most of my works have been the result of explorations of mediums, techniques and forms.