Nowhere Land
Ascend gallery, Hong Kong

Within the universe of Maxim Trulov and Ksusha Lastochka one can often find characters and locations that refer to a current happenings in the world. The Nowhere Land project is a reinterpretation of contemporary realities yet that are closer to surrealism. But no disturbances can change the habitual way of life of the place the authors represent in their works. There is a light in the windows, the smoke rises from the chimney and the police still patrol the streets. The characters in Nowhere Land reflect different types of people: some are in doubts and have endless inner monologues, some ignore what’s happening and some simply don’t understand what’s going on. Darkness has come to the artists universe, but don’t forget that after night always comes the dawn.

"I found me in a gloomy wood"
AU, Street Art Museum, Saint-Petersburg

For this echibition Trulov and Lastochka took an engraving from the series of the French artist Gustave Doré illustrating the Divine Comedy as the basis for the facade of the Museum of Street Art in St. Petersburg. The main character is lost, just like Dante. He did not notice how far he had gone, and that the harmless forest of everyday life had become a frightening wild of insurmountable obstacles. The only way out of this forest is straight to hell.

Hollow world
Hollow world is a ceramic series by Ksusha Lastochka and Maxim Trulov. The series presents new characters with hollow insides but nevertheless full of meaning. Each character is lled with artists’ feelings. Every character is unique, despite seeming visual similarity. The emptiness is lled with all spectres of complicated emotions. Ceramic series is happiness that covers up sadness. Technique requires that all ceramic objects be hollow with a small hole in order to prevent the object from cracking or exploding inside the stove, damaging other objects or the stove in the process. You can never completely predict how the objects will turn out once you place them inside the stove.

YOUR MUM'S KNIGHT
Futuro Gallery, Nizhnii Novgorod

The focal point of the exhibition is the composition Rise and Shine which resembles theatrical decoration, however doesn’t require any stage action. It is a complete piece with its own plot, which unfolds from the foreground of the scene
All those who suffer are knights, but each must decide for himself to what extent.
The characters oppressed by the Giant bring him stones as alms, but weapons are scattered everywhere, and the course of the events can change at any moment.

Cure-All

Group exhibition
ASSUMING DISTANCE: SPECULATIONS, FAKES AND PREDICTIONS IN THE AGE OF CORONACENE
Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 2021

During the spring round of the pandemic, Maxim Trulov and Ksusha Lastochka began to develop a new universe, where everyone was forced to move to individual mobile homes. Under the pressure of epidemiological cities, they turned into car eets with trailer schools, trailer coffee shops and trailer noodles. An impressive phantasmagoria developed: a mysterious food truck appeared, from which they sell paper that heals all diseases, and a black market blossomed, where bottles of "medicine" are resold.

Remember
Solo booth on Cosmoscow Art Fair

The main artefact which serves as the key to understanding the whole exhibition is a diary of a little girl, who lives in a house on the outskirts of Leninskaya Oblast.
Although the project is based on memories of Ksusha Lastochka, Maxim Trulov presence in the project is similar to what is known as transference in psychology. He has consciously placed himself in the experience of another person. As Maxim Trulov says, the project has turned out to be bigger than anything they've done before because of the deep personal connection they have developed with the project.
The project is a signi cant step for their style as artists, as they have used new techniques and materials such as coal, black aerosol chalk, and parts of burned down houses. The artists have managed to create a whole world from childhood, which they have absorbed into their universe of characters. The series was born spontaneously, just as many others, and it keeps expanding. Every work is one day from life and everything that has lled this day. The formats in the series are varied, although they all share the routine and irony present in our lives.