Zhenya Machneva — À propos — Slash Paris

Tapestries in cotton, linen, and synthetic threads, the artist depicts obsolete factories abandoned heroic sanctuary and other remanents of the Soviet grandeur. With lovely, soft textures and a palette given to muted colors, are the works nostalgic, or sardonic.

The rust belt is not a purely American phenomenon, Russia developed scores of single-industry towns dependent on trades that are on the verge of extinction. Zhenya Machneva takes pleasure in the gradual collapse of his aspect of her homeland’s economy might, the young Russian artist does admit appreciate the ‘gloomy beauty’ of its abandoned plants and factories.

Machneva hand weaves the tapestries, prompting comparisons between the obsolescence associated with the places she depicts and her own choice of time — consuming craft — one that she also sees as a form of conscious resistance to art’s ongoing digital drift. It appears an authentic though ultimately futile response to the vaporous omnipresence and instantly disposable excitements of the Internet.