Painting by Olena Koliesnik

The story behind this piece is poignant, and I’d like to share a few details. Internally, I lived through a kaleidoscope of emotions as I revisited the idea of illusions. Is what I see in another person about me, or is it truly about them? To what extent can I understand the person standing across from me for who they really are? How much of my own experience, worldview, stereotypes, or things I’ve heard and taken as truth layers itself onto the person beside me? This whirlwind of thoughts and questions felt like a buzzing beehive. With every brushstroke, I refuted ideas, formulated deeper questions, or, finding myself unable to answer them yet, left theories unproven. The pose and form were inspired by a friend, yet the colors, mood, and energy of the work have nothing in common with him (or so it seems to me). Personally, I call this painting The Unicorn, its essence drawn from the film Materialists. While creating this work, I touched upon the darkness within myself and within people. Its density frightens me, yet draws me in to understand it. Now, sitting before the painting, I gaze into it, letting my thoughts wander and unfold. This is the first work that I cannot yet fully comprehend. From the series "Illusion of Perception," 2024 – Present Series Concept: Glass, reflections, windows, and screens are the conditions of our contact. Reality is accessible to us only through surfaces. Between people, thought is an intangible asset that shapes matter—a layer formed by memory, experience, fears, and expectations. Even a transparent medium does not guarantee clarity; it refracts the image, shifts the focus, and alters the form of what we perceive. In this series, the "mirror surface" represents that very thought. I am exploring a layered vision: when a person is present but unreachable; visible but separate; near, but always perceived through something else. It is a study of multiplicity—the absence of specific characters, the presence of the invisible, and the confrontation with one's own position as an observer. The series functions as an environment where the process of perception itself is revealed—its instability, its conditionality, and its dependence on the internal state of the viewer.