Birdman - monoprints on paper
Birdman - Monoprints on paper
Opening Saturday / January 04-2020 / 6- 9 PM
Blue Fig Gallery
56 Historic Arcade Building
5th Avenue Nashville TN
Stemming from and influenced heavily by Mihail’s passion for mythology, Birdman is an interpretation of the myth of Birdman, widely present in all mythologies, and traditionally representing illumination and resurrection. Unlike commonly regarded as above, his Birdman is depicted as a wingless avian humanoid, who doesn’t retain any specific events of the past, but carries inside the memory of once having his own wings and being able to fly. With his wings now being replaced by rudimentary limbs, somehow resembling human arms and hands, but regarded by him as unwanted elements of carnality and terrestrial transformation, Birdman wanders seemingly aimlessly, suspended in a space that is not earthbound, nor is it airborne, either.
By invoking and eventually communicating with the archaic constituents of the world, he succeeds in finding hid inspiration, and finally getting reborn as a winged, free creature.
In a way, this reflects the almost mythical image of the artist, who must constantly transcend his own afflictions in order to achieve the much desired and long forever state of being able to create.
Birdman Art Show
“Birdman” series creates, in not only a figurative sense but a narrative one as well, a very acutely defined territory where mythology, folklore, history, science and art interconnect, with landmarks that belong to the artist himself, transpired through his beginnings, experiences and personal (body of) work.
In general, we are talking not only about the mythical figure of ICARUS or the BIRDMAN myth of the RAPA NUI Easter Island, but also about the eternal human obsession with flying, and last but not least, the dichotomous and dilemmatic relationship in between freedom and stability, which silver-lines itself the trajectory of the artistic manifestation and ultimately enacts the chimeral persona of the artist.
On a personal level, the artist took a intensely epic perception of his own regional culture, particularly folkloric stories, (given the exceptional picturality of the place he grew up in), and created spaces where one’s interpretation roams free, while the epic force remains as impressive as the one, he has perceived while shaping his artistic personality .
For this purpose, and reviewing his works, he not only deals with de-composure/destruction/creation/reconstitution, in a territory located at the border of visual perception, but applies the filter of historical, mythical or artistical paradigms, to enable consumers’ navigation through minimally charted areas of discovery.
By contrast, the Birdman series, the first monoprint in the artist’s work, is a bold statement of the same set of landmarks, with the same message, but through a form that is now rather brutal, of a bird with truncated wings and legs in a biped position, or of a human with beak and wings primordia. Clearly, this is a chimeric form, boldly installed in the setting created in each and every piece of the series, with a specific contextual message, yet still so freely interpretable.
In conclusion, the human obsession with flight is deeply rooted in our collective consciousness. From mythical figures like Icarus to cultural traditions like the Birdman myth, flight represents both a symbol of freedom and a reminder of the delicate balance between ambition and caution.
