Янголятка/Andílci - Ultravagant by Margarita Ivy 15.9.2022 - 14.10.2022

Янголятка [jangol`yatka]

The exhibition Янголятка opens up the sensitive topic of death and what (does not) comes after it.

Death is something natural, expected, something it is not supposed to be feared. It is the only certainty of life, the only possible end. The question of life after life, however, often still evokes rather unpleasant ...trauma or worry about what is, isn’t and won’t be. Margo Ivy comes up against all these tendencies and through her kind and tender works presents a view of death and ending that is sober, uncolored, but at the same time comforting. She accepts death and reflects on it based on childhood memories and her own symbolism. Margo uses an almost fairy tale aesthetic in her works. The exhibition Янголятка is an open door to a world where foxes wish good night and mice have wings. Peacefully sleeping mice float between the world of the living and the dead behind a layer of epoxy, as if they belong to both worlds but at the same time to neither. Death is not the end of their lives, but rather the harbinger of a new beginning, a new stage.

But the fairytale-like and at times almost childlike stylization is not an obstacle to the quiet reverence and solemnity that is established not only by the works themselves but also by the gallery spaces. An almost sacred atmosphere permeates Margo’s works into the surrounding space, and the place and the works come alive together in a mutual symbiosis between life and death, where it is possible to confront not only death itself, but also our fear of it.

– Anežka Rucká