Title: ALL ME IS BACK
Year: 2023
Size: 3508 x 2480
Technique: Digital art

Description:
The work consists of 9 illustrations made in abstract grotesque style. 6 of them are presented at the exhibition. In the works I am trying to deal with my feelings and emotions, to put together painful fragments in my memory. My father repeatedly violated my physical and psychological boundaries, both as a child and as an adult. In early childhood I experienced sexualised abusive behaviour on his part, the memory of which has been displaced from my psyche. The project helped me not to collapse from the grieving process and to live through the trauma in therapy.

Critical text by Senior Art Curator Karla Peralta Málaga

A WAKEFUL SAFE, to wakefully save her wakeful self. Bewildered by violent violet memories to then sublimate them and save them into wakeful memories. Anastaska Po presents “TOGETHER”, “ALL ME IS BACK”, “TAKE IT”, “DADY GO TO HELL”, “GAME CLEAN” and “IS OVER” for the Mixed Reality Solo exhibition at M.A.D.S. Art gallery. Anastasia Podkolzina, pseudonym Anastaska Po, creates the project "My father is a psycho" and within this project, the series "Abstract Scream”, which consists in nine digital illustrations depicted with an abstract grotesque style, an Abstratesque style, coined by the artist herself, six of which are showcased in M.A.D.S. Solo exhibition. The artist rationalizes distressing events to sublimate them into colorful bold artworks, where her Abstratesque style is her answer. It is the wakeful safe the artist was longing. Perpetual wakefulness is eager to embrace turmoiled memories and pursue their metamorphosis. The first artwork portrays the aftermath of what it seems to be an enticing parade of memories craving to be understood and saved in the wakeful safe the artist is creating. Words are presented in “TOGETHER” to immediately engage with the viewer. “ALL ME IS BACK”, acts as an acknowledgement after turmoil, bold blues and reds act as decisive characters conspiring to witness tranquility. Visual repetition is manifested in the third artwork in order to emphasize movement, a constant displacement ready to take over a new change of mind. The term grotesque recalls a type of decoration inside Nero’s Domus Aurea, which is characterized by the depiction of monstrous and mythical beings, which blends into geometric ornamentation. Remi Astruc suggests that the grotesque is an alternative reality, it is a matter of how reality is represented as the metamorphosis of these monstrous and mythical beings. It portrays metamorphosis in life, change itself. “TAKE IT” is the beginning of the metamorphosis. Anna Freud describes ten types of defense, two of them are Reaction formation and sublimation. Reaction formation acts as an opposite response to turmoiled events. The artist safeguards herself against such events, attempting to resolve it in a positive manner through art. A fourth masterpiece is created during a constant change. Abstratesque style pursues the metamorphosis of monstrous memories ready to be altered, waiting to be sublimated thanks to abstract forms. Intense colorful strokes surround words, which are intended as a direct message for a sublimated character. “GAME CLEAN” has harmonized each color to evoke an atmosphere of remembrance of awareness, of wakefulness. A wakeful safe is being created to save a wakeful self. The artist understands through color the importance of maintaining an equilibrium to achieve a wakeful state of understanding. A safe, as an object as a safe place to save memories. “IS OVER”, inactive lethargic thoughts, restlessness is already over. Sublimation is completed thanks to the grotesque metamorphosis represented in the entire series, to be grotesque, to be in constant monstrous change. A WAKEFUL SAFE is created to save a monstrous metamorphosis and sublimate it into a wakeful self. Anastaska Po creates an Abstratesque safe an outstanding wakeful safe. Is over.