Painting by Olena Koliesnik

The story of these 30×30 cm artworks began with a singular question: What happens if I am buried under a critical mass of fragments—shards of perceptions about others in my attempt to understand everyone around me? Does the quest to know others inevitably lead to the discovery of oneself? Is self-knowledge the only truly accessible format for interacting with the world? This journey of inquiry was sparked by dialogues and photographs shared by a barista, a friend, and a colleague. My vision is to manifest 512 paintings of this size, eventually forming a monumental installation 5 meters high and 10 meters wide. As long as there are those willing to enter this dialogue, the project holds the potential to reach its full, immersive scale. Through the Glass 4: The Barista From the series "Illusion of Perception" (2024 – Present) The Concept: In this series, glass, reflections, windows, and screens are the fundamental conditions of contact. We only ever access reality through surfaces. Between individuals, thought is an intangible asset that shapes physical matter—a layer formed by memory, experience, fears, and expectations. Even a transparent medium offers no guarantee of clarity; it refracts the image, shifts the focus, and alters the form of what we perceive. Here, the "mirror surface" represents the thought itself. I am exploring a layered vision: * The state of being present yet unreachable. * Being visible yet profoundly separated. * Being "near," but always perceived through a filter. This work dwells on the duality of absence and presence—the absence of specific characters versus the haunting presence of the unseen. The series functions as an environment where the process of perception reveals its own nature: its instability, its conditionality, and its absolute dependence on the internal state of the observer.