The artist Olena Mynenko (Kyiv, 1970) presents at Casa de América until 30 August, the exhibition Los días del Primer Sol, an exhibition inspired by the Mexican myth that relates the creation and destruction of the world. Free admission until capacity is full.
Through this Aztec cosmogony-where primitive humanity, embodied by giants, is annihilated by jaguars sent by the gods-, Mynenko reflects on the fragility of power, the inevitability of collapse and the processes of transformation that go through our time.
In his works, large-scale human figures, winged bodies and extended torsos emerge in jungle landscapes, accompanied by animal presences that reinforce the narrative tension. These scenes, stopped halfway between the mythological and the natural, form a space of contemplation on the fall of established orders.
With a meticulous black and white technique, close to classical engraving and academic drawing, Mynenko builds a visual language in which light, volume and texture are essential. Through chiaroscuro and dynamic compositions of foreshortening and suspended movements, the artist links the European figurative tradition with a symbolic imaginary of universal scope.
In this proposal, formal beauty does not act as an ornament, but as a threshold of tragedy: the more perfect and exuberant the representation, the sharper the sense of loss becomes. The fall is not represented as a violent catastrophe, but as a silent dissolution, almost organic, where sublime and ruin coexist in the same image.
