The OVCHARENKO Gallery presents Mikhail Dryanovsky’s project “RELAPSE” — the artist’s third solo exhibition at the gallery.

The balcony is a strange place. A room that, for some reason, has been moved outside. Random things are placed here, laundry dries, people smoke, look down, and store what no longer fits inside.

In the OVCHARENKO space, canvases with balcony grilles appear. The grilles cross the paintings, and the figures end up in front of them, behind them, or somewhere in between. Sometimes it’s hard to understand exactly what’s on the outside.

The surface of the canvas doesn’t hold up. Holes, tears, folds, and gaps appear in it. Behind the painting, there’s space. Behind the space, there’s another surface. Or just a wall. What has already happened happens again, but a little differently. The painting is assembled fr om traces, scraps, paint, and things without a particularly interesting history. All of this holds together for a while. Then it starts to behave on its own.

Figures appear in awkward positions. They seem to be trying to get out, but it’s not very clear wh ere they’re trying to go. Sometimes they resemble people. Sometimes they’re the remnants of an image after the image has already taken place. The canvas sags, stretches, and gathers into folds. The painting here can behave like a fat fold, like a false wall, like a poorly secured structure. At some point, all that remains is to topple the balcony.

The balcony generally doesn’t tolerate certainty well. It’s both inside the apartment and already outside. You can go out onto it to stay at home. You can look outward and find yourself on display. Dralinovsky’s works continue the movement begun by the projects “Rat’s Nest” (2020) and “Happy Ending” (2024), but now something is returning again. Not literally. Rather, like the material’s habit of decaying on its own.

The assembly happens simultaneously with the destruction. The surface opens and immediately tries to close. A figure appears where no one expected it.
Perhaps the balcony has already collapsed.
Perhaps it simply didn’t exist.

About the artist
Mikhail Dolyanovsky (b. 1986, Belgorod) is a contemporary Russian artist and musician. In 2012, he graduated from the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts with a specialization in “Monumental Painting.” In his practice, Dolyanovsky reinterprets classical academic volumes and expressive corporeality, juxtaposing them with digital aesthetics, elements of surrealism, and glitch art. Founder of the music micro‑label “History of the Illness”. Since 2016, he has been living and working in Moscow. The “RELAPSE” exhibition is the artist’s third solo exhibition at the OVCHARENKO gallery (following the “Rat’s Nest” projects in 2020 and “Happy Ending” in 2024).