Pale Grass Blue, Exhibition Walkthrough

Washington, DC: Hamiltonian Artists is pleased to present Misha Ilin’s solo exhibition Pale Grass Blue. Ilin’s latest body of work asserts that ecocide, wars, body politics, and capital each exist as a sort of radioactive event, altering and reshaping the genome of what we term reality. As these normalized, so-called actions seep toxins into the fabric of the socio-political environment and geographical landscapes, things become increasingly blurry, hazy, and loopy. 

In response to philosopher Timothy Morton’s theoretical assertion of the hyperobject, Pale Grass Blue slips into the void. The exhibition will include a suite of new installations, found objects, video, directives, and other textual elements. Utilizing both natural and artificial materials such as drywall, floodlights, spray paint, clay, sand, and plaster—Ilin immerses visitors in a surreal, shimmering landscape that reflects a sort of porosity. There, fractures that distort our everyday modes of thought and social relation are compounded. In signifying moments of slippage, mutation, and critical mass, Ilin’s work sounds an alarm that calls attention to the permeability of our bodies and collective consciousness. To offer broader context for his latest work, Ilin shares the following, 

“Akin to scratchy rays of radiation that burn and mutilate, events that have transpired and continue to effect change long after we are gone. We are left new and bizarre, like the wings of a mutated Pale Grass Blue.”

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Misha Ilin’s interdisciplinary practice investigates constructed realities as forms of human, environmental responses to excessive authority and control. The interactive spaces Ilin creates are primarily constructed through situational criteria informed by contemporary dilemmas, such as exploitative labor, social inequality, and exhausting immigration procedures. In addition to written parameters, Misha’s work engages with performed prompts, sculpture, and installations in which he often embeds metanarratives and the aesthetics of folklore and gaming culture. Themes of fantasy blur the line between lightheartedness and darkness, mirroring the strange nature of authoritative social systems. 

In generating situational prompts hinged upon individual viewer response such as conversation or physical participation, Misha’s work also lends itself to reconfiguration and negotiation. Such open-endedness queries the interrelation between subjugation and circumvention, and sheds light on the ways in which constructed realities might function as vehicles for resistance, introspection, and the reclamation of agency.

Misha studied art at the National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow, Russia. In 2016 he moved to the United States to pursue his art career and earned his MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, in 2019. Misha has recently exhibited at M+B Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; the kitchen, Berlin, Germany Modern Art Museum Shanghai, Shanghai, China; and Washington Project for Arts, Washington, DC, among other venues. Misha currently lives and works in New York, NY.

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