Artist Presentation 5: Oleg Kulik

"Big Milk"

"Dog"

"Beremennaya"

I found Oleg Kulik's work in The Alternative Museum's exhibition Digitally Born- Digitally Manipulated Photographs. Fantasy is a prominent theme within Digitally Born. The artists have portrayed their imagination through the manipulation of these images. Fantasy is an element that often delights the viewer, but these works are alarming and provocative as well. Photography is often used to capture a more realistic portrayal, but these images push beyond what is immediate and perceptible. They make us question what is really being portrayed and our associations with the subjects.

Reality is ultimately the starting point for fantasy so it seems fitting that Kulik and the rest of the artists in this exhibition begin with photography. I really like how Kulik uses the repetition of the dog in all three of his works within this exhibition. He is using the dog to point out the essence of being human. In "Dog," by placing the dog in front of the family laying a golden egg, Kulik is referencing the fairytale of the goose laying the golden egg, which is a reference to greed. He seems to make a lot of allusions to allegories, commenting on the human psyche.

When I looked at the three images that Oleg Kulik has displayed I was most confused by "Beremennaya." The viewer is almost pushed up against the figure in the foreground on the right, who appears to be pregnant. On the bed in the background is another figure which is somewhat hidden and displayed at the same time, but still hard to read. The dog is in the center of the image looking slightly afraid. There is a vibrant red which is placed on an object on the ground. This object seems identical to what is between the legs of the figure on the bed. It was hard for me to decipher everything shown. Apparently, "beremennaya" means pregnant in Russian. I believe the artist wants the viewer to think about the origin of life and what it means to give birth, but it the way the dog is just placed in the photograph is kind of disconcerting because the tone of the image is not immediately apparent.

The way that Kulik uses three tries at presenting the dog in different ways and associating it with different aspects of being human is very interesting to me. With the letter project, I know that we are supposed to present three different approaches to similar imagery. Therefore, I found this recurring theme of the dog and Kulik's style very relevant.