The vivid painting depicting a sacrifice gave its name to the project. In the past, people sacrificed something to the gods asking for well-being and protection. Now it seems that this practice has lost its sacred nature or meaning, having long since receded into the historical distance. The picture captures fragments of this process: the hands cutting a carcass, the shirt cuffs and black suit sleeves indicate that this ritual is being performed in the present day with the male figure acting as a priest. It might seem like a return to the archaic times and a reference to the original magical purpose, but it’s not so simple.
The Heart represents a huge bleeding muscle with tentacle-like vessels clinging to the walls and the ceiling of the exhibition space like a living and autonomous being. For the Artist, it is a symbol of the huge and self-destructive power of grief, which is why the heart appears torn out and exposed. The expression ‘like a stab in the heart’ is used when people mentally tear themselves into pieces until nothing but a small fragment is left. It is a dangerous sacrifice disproportionate in relation to the expected benefits which no one guaranteed in the first place.
The Meat Grinder shows painted canvas as a piece of steak grated in a meat grinder and squeezed out of it. This striking image symbolises the situation in which artists, like many people who process the trends of time, often find themselves when entering the blood-thirsty race and sacrificing their true ideas to someone’s hidden consumerist intents. The need to predict what ideas and concepts will be relevant and sought-after in order to achieve popularity does not bring the requisite peace of mind, leading to self-betrayal and rapidly spreading inner void and loneliness. This is a senseless sacrifice which will eventually seem like too high a price to pay for the deathly race.
The Tree art object becomes in the context of this project a gallows tree used for sacrifices. Although initially it seems that the future benefits will justify this rite, the person practicing it might end up with unexpected bloody fruit. Sacrifice may not live up to the expectations, ruining all sacred hopes.
The Motherhood Within painting combines the traditional scene of mother and child with a vague silhouette of an oil derrick in the background, symbolising unnecessary riches and excessive material wealth being cast off and slowly receding in the distance. The picture closes the series, summing up the Artist’s thoughts on the ultimate worth of the sacrifices that we all make. The two sacral figures in the foreground have always indicated pure thoughts, the natural and the divine principles, fruitfulness and home. Ms. Marina Fedorova comes to a logical conclusion that the only justifiable and possible sacrifice, even in the modern world, is the one that brings happiness.
Marina Fedorova
