Blog

The Quartz Collective presents 

POP-UP show

7th June from 12-5pm
17 Empress Place, SW6 1TT

 

This new body of work is an immersive installation set within a confined, intimate space, completely enveloped in looping digital animation. Two performers inhabit the space over the course of five continuous hours, moving in a state of constant, intuitive motion.

 

Inside this disorienting environment, the performers navigate the space with limited sound input, which forces them to approach movement genuinely, being affected by the environmental circumstances. This approach explores the physical and emotional limits of the body, offering no clear script and instead pushing the relationship between space, control, and bodily autonomy. The movement reflects shifting emotional states and how they leave traces on the body—echoing the struggle and depth of being and accepting oneself. Meanwhile, looping animated visuals create an atmosphere of relentless chaos, with no defined beginning or end—intensifying the sense of repetition, confusion, and unpredictability.

 

The audience experiences the work voyeuristically—through a single peephole embedded in the door, reminiscent of an oversized, inverted keyhole. The soundscape blends music with field recordings, drawing attention to the overlooked textures of daily life. It challenges the idea that music lives only in structure, reminding us that sound surrounds us—subtle, irreplaceable, and deeply woven into our existence.

 

Rather than providing a linear narrative, the work deliberately overwhelms the senses. The digital projections continuously collapse and reassemble, forming and dissolving into a chaotic visual rhythm. This structure resists coherence and embraces entropy, drawing the audience into a visceral, disjointed reality.

As with the work of Joan Jonas—pioneering American performance artist, filmmaker, and installation artist—this project is not afraid to let each element take on a life of its own. Like paintings in motion, the performances do not follow a script; they begin and evolve organically, driven by the logic of the moment and the instability of their surroundings.

 

Kirill Makarov is an artist working at the intersection of digital technologies, painting, and visual media. He explores the transformation of the image as it moves from the virtual environment into the material world, only to dissolve back into the digital realm. In his practice, Makarov employs experimental approaches, blending printmaking and digital processes in an attempt to capture what often escapes our field of vision, while exploring how visual fragments shape perception.

In this interview for Voskhod, Kirill shares his artistic journey, his experiments with ultraviolet printing, and his thoughts on how contemporary visual culture has become deeply entangled with violence — even when we don't consciously realize it.

This conversation with Anna Andrzhievskaia explores her artistic path, the themes of migration, loss, and memory, and the creative process behind her project Fundbüro Geist. Anna shares her thoughts on working with space, experimenting with materials, and using allegory as a narrative tool, while reflecting on the concept of ghostliness and her future aspirations.

Roma Bantik was born in Ural in a small closed town called Lesnoy, but for the last two years has been living and studying in Strasbourg, France. His practice involves working with metal - he remelting military and idustrial objects into new shapes and forms to “brings them more to the native state”. This February Roma opened his new solo exhibition in our Voskhod vitrines in Basel and we asked our another artist, Matiush First @matiushfirst to interview Roma.

We asked several simple questions to Sofya Skidan, artist, yoga teacher and the author of the exhibition "Conjuring Trapped/ Stolen Memories" currently ongoing in our vitrines.

Kuril Chto is the pseudonym of the artist and resident at Voskhod Gallery. He has been based in Lisbon for several years and, working in various media, uses irony and absurdity to explore everyday life. Recently, the Foco Gallery, one of Lisbon's trendiest, hosted the exhibition "I'm curious blue" as part of the Novo Festival. We talked to Kuril Chto about the canvases, art objects and paintings on display. We also discussed his experiences studying at the New York Academy of Art and the differences between the American and European art markets.

 

Until 2022, Stas Falkov was a famous designer who created the successful streetwear brand Kruzhok in Moscow and developed a creative association on its basis. But a year ago his life changed dramatically. Stas relocated to France, found himself in abstract painting, and, together with director Vasya Berezin, created the art association "Microcredit" in an abandoned office on the outskirts of Paris. We visited the French abandoned office with Stasto discuss his new series of works, the concept of the endless journey and his future plans.

We discussed with our artist Anton Kushaev his new solo project Frame of Sorrow. Sharing a short but captivating conversation with you!

Continuing with our tradition of doing little interviews with our artists, we asked @misha_gudwin bunch of open questions and received some honest and through answers. Enjoy!

Oleg Ustinov is a Russian artist from Rostov-on-Don, a graduate of the Rodchenko Art School. He develops new forms of painting at the intersection of post-digital painting, collage and sculpture.

 In his artistic practice, he turns to the experience of the Soviet avant-garde and abstract expressionism. In one of his first series, "Sposobb" (2013), looking at different "ways" and "techniques", he finds color and compositional solutions that will be caught in his works further on. In the  "IDM" series (2013), Ustinov uses logo paper left from Oracal self-adhesive film - and sets out to "disrupt the rhythm," both literally and in the sense of rearranging the established order. In "Liquid Geometry" (2018), he explores the boundaries of geometric abstraction and abstract expressionism inspired by changing urban boundaries. In the series "4d/4p(+∞)" (2018), he examines the intersection of the manual and the digital in painting. In his latest works, Ustinov will combine the idea of blurring boundaries and the algorithm he invented for alternating between manual and digital painting.

 While working on different themes and formal approaches, Ustinov works in series, each one of them accurately and subtly traces the influence of his curatorial, literary and musical practices.

Our one and only super charismatic Maria Cohen is currently doing her masters at Camberwell college of Arts/ Univeriversity of Arts in London. We recently sat with her over a zoom session for a nice chat. Please enjoy and send us your comments at info@voskhod.ch

WIth this post we open a series of interview/conversations with our artists that we will be publishing through this blog. 

 

Alena Smolina

Interview  with an artist - March 2021