video-portrait, 4'20"
The surface is a sensual and transformable shield of physical objects. Coating the content it preserves and reflects the depth. Does it mean then that the surface represents the depth or exists independently manifesting its own form and sense?
The surface always exceeds the core it covers, like for example skin is the biggest organ of a human’s body, therefore it wraps and at the same time exposes. So along with being a protecting layer it performs an agent contacting with the outward and transmitting signals. That is why the all-over surface has developed high sensitivity within its solidness.
Daria Gusakova treated the surface as a fact to be de-mystified and literally emphasized while contemporary research brings back the idea of the surface covering something hidden and inaccessible, that does not return illusionistic optic yet. Here Daria do not seek to get underneath but to stay outside. She mind the distanced depth and stay focused on the experience of the outstretched surface – touching, observing and transforming it – what Giles Deleuze called “to glissade”.
Using the method of overlapping layers Daria has developed a different attitude. “Portrait of Yulya” is a poetical performative gesture of interacting with the surface. The artist is shaping it as a flexible material – wrapping and twisting the bed sheet she is storytelling on the personality.
