Exhibition of June 2016

I suddenly smeared the weekday map
splashing paint from a glass:

Vladimir Mayakovsky

It has long been observed that Saint- Petersburg does not best represented by the indigenous citizens, but those who met with him no being longer a child. Recognized singers of Petersburg - Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Bely - were born elsewhere. There are exceptions, but they are few. This phenomenon is easy to explain - because when you live in the city, since you can remember, all casually perceived - everything is as it should be. If the introduction occurs in adolescence or adulthood - all the features, all the differences from other places, other cities are evident. For local residents harmonious beauty of architectural ensembles of Saint-Petersburg, its palaces, squares, monuments, bridges - is everyday life background. Being asked when the last time was in the Hermitage and the Mariinsky Theatre, many citizens find it difficult to answer. Of course, there is another side - the locals have their own, secret, discreet corners of the city, dear by lyrical memories - courtyards, stained glass and sculptures in the stairwells, memories of the already demolished buildings, the long-closed institutions...

But the view from the outside has the advantage of freshness. Portrait of Saint-Petersburg, which is composed as of the many faces by Maria Susarenko’ graphic works, emphasizes its youth, uninhibited elegance, charm of classical beauty of its architecture, the vital energy.

Drawings by Susarenko evokes Dobuzhinsky city sketches, drawings by Vrubel as if fragmented into multiple petals - but this is only a distant association. Bright, crisp, lacy lines that dissect the cityscape, laid it on the components and then merge together, full of modernity, breathing of  today, its music, its rhythms. Bright color accents, boldly scattered on the black-and-white sheets, like a flash of spotlights, snatching dazzling staging of the performance of urban life.

Some works rhythmically converted views of Saint-Petersburg, its roofs and yards, turn them into a pattern in multi-colored silk scarf, which is able to decorate a woman of fashion is not alien experiments. This demonstrates the ability to look at things with a smile - a property essential for the life in the city, which is famous for rainy weather and prone to flooding.