In mid-March, it gets dark much later than what citizens of St. Petersburg are used to after a long winter. So the organisers decided that at 9pm they will brighten the grey city with dazzling colours. Hundreds of guests came along to enjoy the high quality game of lights. In fact, the entrance of the studio was so chock-a-block at the start of the event that it created a stir. Despite this, no one was left disappointed; everyone who was interested could enjoy for free, both the pictures and the animal head designs on the walls which would not upset even those most ardently opposing hunting, as they are made of plastic.
“The idea of creating the Paperhead project came up last summer. The inspiration for us was polygonal paper modelling, which is now extremely popular in Western countries. We were not afraid to try to do something similar – we found designer models and only later came up with the idea to spice up the whole production with projection mapping, and thus found specialists in this field. Now there are six people in our team, but we are still expanding the staff. Sergey Rozhko, Sergey Voronin and I collected the figures for the event. Yaroslav Davidchik and Oleg Mazunin created a composition for the lighting installation. The producer, Ekaterina Okraishvili found artists for the exhibition” – explained the co-founder of Paperhead and a student at ITMO university, Sergey Bogachev.
The event was made up of several elements: the guests admired installations with light projections and a painting exhibition by young contemporary artists together with a melodious musical accompaniment. In the first hall, the guests ran into a polygonal screen, similar to a crumpled piece of paper. It was literally brought to life due to the light shining on each of its faces. The guests rested on couches and the window sill and were just fascinated as they gazed on the different images. According to the organisers, the idea to make the screen came to them a week before the exhibition.
“I really enjoyed the event overall, but I was especially impressed by the work of Yaroslav Davidchik and Anastasia Dubinovski. The mapping was quite dazzling and spectacular. I also want to acknowledge the excellent music from the DJs which contributed a great atmosphere” – noted one of the attendees of the event Margarita Poylova
A buffalo paired with a polar bear, a horse in a scarlet gauze, a lone buffalo with red eyes under the studio’s cotton-wool clouds hanging from the ceiling, - it’s difficult to say which plastic head grabbed the most attention from the visitors on Saturday night. On one hand the horse enchanted the viewers of “Light at the end of the tunnel”, but then no one could tear their eyes away from the buffalo and bear union because of the dazzling colours. The lighting created the illusion of an unusual cartoon, the characters of which hovered between the fictional world and reality.
At the event, everyone had a chance to look at the contemporary artwork. Several popular works at the exhibition belonged to an eccentric artist with the alias Maf. All evening the artist hid his face behind a fabric mask, glasses and a hat. When asked what his work symbolises, he just shrugged, as though art doesn’t require explanation. Maf himself became an art piece – visitors took just as many pictures with him as they did with the exhibits.
Paintings of other artists combined different styles, adapting to the general concept of the event, playing with form and colour. The exhibition participants’ style was influenced by the culture of street art and graffiti represented in the intricate geometry of the works, the prints and optical illusions. The exhibition will be open until 21 March, so that those with a fresh view on art can admire the remarkable paintings and even purchase their favourite work.
