PROTECTIVE LAYER
2022

The «Protective Layer» project is a continuation of my creative practice, but the changes in reality that are happening now have forced me to reconsider the meaning of previously created images and invented techniques.
The artistic world that I have been creating in recent years from wood was unexpectedly supplemented with metal. For me metal has always been an aggressive material, unlike wood. Working with it is always accompanied by danger: welding, burns, sparks, fire, rust, injuries – the potential for injury is inherent in metal because it is harder than the human body. In the presented project, the traumatizing and traumatized metal becomes the embodiment of the feelings of wartime, the constant ratio of protection and defenselessness.
I think that my art and this project cannot be a documentary evidence of the tragedy in the literal sense, but art rarely tells and describes events directly. It is important for me that art captures the mental and physical tension that unites us all in the fight against the enemy and maintains faith. My artistic language has always contained the theme of victory over death, but only now this theme is no longer abstract.

Kostiantyn ZORKIN (1985). Art historian, lecturer, author of puppet shows for Ukrainian theaters. Works solo and together with other artists under the conventional name of «Laboratory of non-directional actions». Works and lives in Kharkiv, Ukraine.