Oops-Babes, 2009-2010.

A series of works by Evgeniya Maltseva "Oops-Babes" introduces us to a deserted and abandoned space inhabited only by dolls. It is difficult to determine what kind of being these beings belong to. Most of all, they resemble orphaned Baroque putti, dropped from heaven to earth and deprived of wings. Little angels, having lost their wings, turned into living plastic dolls. Dolls cannot grow, the shapes of their naked bodies have frozen once and for all. The thin, delicate skin has lost its sensitivity and has become a plastic shell, behind which lies an inner emptiness. Wandering around the joyless world of dolls in confusion, the viewer inevitably has a question: what happened to these children? And what is this strange place?

Perhaps this is a dump where broken children hide?

A fleeting glance snatches a frame with a bright spot in the center, similar to a cloudy mirror ("Fuck you and your "Hi! How are you?"). A heavy brown edge hangs over it – there are dolls depicted in the upper part of the canvas. They, like insects, hide in the dark from a bright ray of light. Little creatures are terrified of the Big Cold World, which has decided that they are just garbage. There is no one to expect protection and sincerity from, because no one really needs anyone, all human interaction is limited to the hypocritical pseudo-interest "hello, how are you?". Therefore, babies are doomed to loneliness.

Or is this strange world a puppet theater?

It's as if two doll cupids ("Sex") appear on the stage from the void. They don't have arrows and bows to pierce someone's heart with passion. Instead of a bow, one of the dolls has a plastic doll's hand, it should play the role of a phallus. But the ossified flesh of dolls is invulnerable to pleasure and pain. Genuine sexual intimacy occurs between cadmium yellow and burgundy kraplak. The merging and touching of these colors give a flash of pulsating energy, in the radiance of which the dolls seem only transparent phantoms.

In another act of the play, a glowing white ball seeks to fill the entire space with itself ("Hitler wanted to become an artist"). It simultaneously expands and dissolves in the dark. It turns out that the incomprehensible celestial object is a huge doll's head with a motionless mask face. A head that exists without a body is a metaphor for pure rationality, the inability to listen to your heart and empathize.

Or maybe the world of dolls is a dark basement where violence is committed?

The dungeon filled with darkness is inhabited by deformed and mutilated bodies. Someone broke and mutilated one of the dolls, and he looked like a little Frankenstein, constructed from a leg and a head. ("Hitler's sperm"). The searchlight beam reveals the smiling face of a baby in the dark. Looking at him, you notice that behind the smile of the Gioconda on this face hides the grimace of a Joker who was wounded once and wants to cause suffering to others.

A journey through the dark corners where the dolls live leads to a new mystery: someone mangled these babies, cut off their wings and left them here alone. Who?! From the depths of consciousness comes the answer: Dolls are an image of the irreversibility of human cruelty. He confronts us with insanity in the attitude of people towards each other.

The culmination of the "Oops-Babes" series is the painting "Katyn". The work is dedicated to the victims of the Katyn tragedy. A square hole exposes the insides of the pit, at the bottom of which sit doll bodies with their heads turned away. The image of broken dolls, torn apart, is rhythmically transformed into a majestic antique relief, full of despair and sorrow. The bitterness and pain for the innocent spilled blood silences. The picture is like a silent funeral cry.

Gradually, there is an understanding that two orders of being coexist in the works of Evgeniya Maltseva. The pictorial substance of paint asserts its own existence independently of the world of moving dolls. The reality of color layers, the struggle of light and shadow, and the powerful textured manner of writing pulsates and lives its own life. Our perception seems to drift from understanding the picture as a plane to experiencing it as a space. Sometimes the viewer cannot determine what is in front of him – a figurative composition or an abstract painting. The artist undertakes to tell the story of rejected and crippled children, but she is seized with rage and narration becomes impossible. As Paul Klee said, "The more terrifying this world becomes, the more abstract art becomes.»