The exhibition will feature multi-component works made using the textile collage technique; the artist himself calls them textile panels. Tyurlik’s creations present strange and often absurd situations, sometimes combined with wordplay, consonances and jokes. The artist deliberately avoids seriousness and philosophising; he seems to tip a wink at the viewer and provides no ready answers. This approach avoids any obvious interpretations or easy explanations.

The textile panels created by the artist specifically for the exhibition illustrate subjects originating in sleep paralysis, the strange realm between sleep and reality where familiar concepts, reference points and meanings become blurred and distorted. An episode of sleep paralysis typically lasts from a few seconds to several minutes, disrupting the smooth passage of time and the comfortable transition from sleep to reality. Usually it is combined with vivid but extremely unpleasant and terrifying dreams. A huge pheasant, an ominous black rooster watching fishermen on the ice, big-eyed mushrooms and even the elephant recognisable from a packet of Indian tea may perform atypical actions and exist within unexpected scenarios. A separate role in Tyurlik’s works is assigned to words, which, as part of the subject matter, distort the meaning and significance.

The artist does not set himself the task of scaring the viewer or evoking unpleasant emotions. Tyurlik’s textile panels are not horror stories told as night falls, they are not caricatures or puns, but rather free fantasies on familiar topics, the author’s reaction to reality and related phenomena. But the main idea the artist wishes to convey is sleep paralysis – an uncomfortable, but nevertheless finite phenomenon. Having puzzled, stunned and even frightened a person, it will inevitably give way to the final awakening.

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Vitaly Tyurlik (b. 1988, Moscow), a historian-archivist and Moscow artist, has worked exclusively with the Ruarts Gallery since 2023. He uses hand embroidery, textile collage and graphics. In 2012 he graduated from the Historical and Archival Faculty of the Russian State University for the Humanities. As a child he was struck by the works of Soviet artist Gely

Korzhev, who devised a grotesque series of creations devoted to ‘tyurliks’, absurd anthropomorphic creatures, and hence the pseudonym. As the author himself says: “It seems to me that there are many tyurliks among people. Perhaps I’m a tyurlik myself.” He was a resident of the 9th season of Open Studios at the Winzavod Centre for Contemporary Art. Participated in the WinWin markets and the Blazar fair for young contemporary art (where he was presented at the Ruarts Gallery stand in 2023). Participant in group exhibitions: ‘Guiding Thread’ (Tula, Oktava Cluster); ‘No One Is an Island’ (Moscow, Winzavod Centre for Contemporary Art); ‘Fairy Tales for Growing Up: From and To’ (Moscow, House of N.V. Gogol); ‘Readers of Things’ (Moscow, Sol Art Space).