Kostiantyn Zorkin. Lullaby

For Kostiantyn Zorkin, art is the tangible evidence of the existence of the soul. After all, it is through the language of art that one can communicate directly with the soul, bypassing the barriers of rational intellect.

The theme of the magical function of art unites everything created by Kostiantyn Zorkin: painting, graphics, textile and wooden objects, performances, and land art. The artist invites viewers to a unique game, the task of which is to confuse the mind, turn it away so that it does not hinder direct interaction with the magical field of art. In his practice, the artist uses natural materials, manual processing, and mostly works with wood and metal.

All of Kostiantyn Zorkin’s works are interconnected with elements and symbols of inner mythology and are related to philosophical and spiritual concepts of different cultures. These signs are fully manifested in sculptures from the series “Language of Signs”: the snake, skull, bird, and human figure emerge from the wooden hands of the philosopher-alchemist. According to the artist’s idea, who was also an artist for several exhibitions at the Kharkiv Puppet Theater, these hands are also the hands of a puppeteer-demigod.

The tapestries presented at the exhibition are linked to the artist’s contemplations about the sacred nature of lullabies. From a magical thinking perspective, a lullaby is an ancient practice of programming sleep. The main task of parents is to protect the child, and a lullaby is an attempt to do this even during sleep. The words and melody of a lullaby resemble an incantation that safeguards the child’s consciousness in the realm of dreams, guiding them past nightmares and horrors until awakening at dawn.

According to the artist, the tapestries are his own attempt to lull the terrifying reality: “Everything I did then was a kind of programming for a nightmarish dream that I ordered for myself, not knowing what lay ahead. And it helped me.” For viewers, these works become a source of hope, evidence that art indeed possesses a magical power—even in the most frightening nightmares in which we may find ourselves, it can point the way to the light.