With basket full of gifts and ambiguities, you are warmly welcomed to the exhibition The Feast. With inspiration from ancient mythology and Bacchus festivitas, artists Kateryna Komendant and Robbin Carlsson create a captivating and eccentric world filled with intricate stories and familiar symbols. In seven-meter-long oil paintings, a tumultuous party with wayward and quarrelsome characters is depicted - all in an uninterrupted rhythm - in a scene, day and night, where just about anything can happen.
Kateryna Komendant and Robbin Carlsson are two Malmö-based artists who explore the exhibition medium through border-crossing manners from classical painting and sculptures to 3D prints and installations.
The exhibition is inspired by Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, parties and ecstasy. He was considered a god who could bring people joy and happiness, but also a god who could cause chaos and disorder through excessive partying and violence. Luna representing the mystery of the night appears in the shimmer of the moonlight. Orpheus, Cerberus, Tantalus, Zeus and Hades appear, relationships are woven together in the chaotic existence of the demigod world and hidden in scenery and foliage.
The details are carefully composed, the color scale is saturated, well-crafted and the style is unique. A presented meal takes place in the room, a physical installation where the presence of now gives additional dimensions to the story and finally all threads are tied together in a family portrait.
The exhibition's paintings explore man's constant striving to achieve more. The grotesque and twisted becomes an illusory state where the figures are almost in dissolution and lose themselves in greed and materialism. With their unique and expressive style, they surprise and fascinate the viewer while exploring some of the most fundamental questions about human behavior and society.
Robbin Carlsson is a well-reputed artist within the urban art scene and has participated in group exhibitions and public decoration assignments.
Kateryna Komendant is educated at the Kharkiv Art Academy and moved to Malmö after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. She has been presented in solo exhibitions and participated in international art festivals in Barcelona, Germany and Sweden.