Yana Ushakova – fine lines between survival and vulnerability

By Caroline Canault.

Her experience with chemotherapy compelled Yana to focus on the beauty found within the human body, on its survival, its vulnerability. Her main inspiration is anastomosis; communication established between two organs, two nerve endings. Whether a natural occurrence or enabled through surgery, this technique reconstitutes parts of the body and channels blood flow.

Using oils on canvas, the artist depicts nudity throughout different stages of our lives. A radical otherness coalesces through the dilution of our bodies. Figures are borne from variations based upon the formless. The composition is always expected to be in movement, a mutation. This genuine anatomy of convulsion is subject to the requirements of depersonalization, even if one can sometimes make out a few details – nipples, staring eyes, a hand…

This dilution belies an attempt to escape, to flee the body, to open up fresh perspectives, thus creating a space of freedom. Flesh colors mix with blood-red hues, spreading as they bleed into each other. Perpetually distorted, in constant flux, verging on evanescence – the energy of Yana Ushakova’s gestures are clearly in line with Figurative Destructuralism.