Extensive travelling and the development of a painting career over the past eight years have culminated in six ambitious and iconic paintings. Beautifully detailed and carefully executed, they represent Dubnyckyj’s deep fascination with and perception of the homogenised twenty-first century cityscape. Spectacular images of the world’s most defining cities are depicted here in highly reflective gloss-painted surfaces that glow with the assurance of man’s achievements.
Cities play host to humanity’s hopes and dreams and yet conversely its despairs. They are emblems of social development, but tax our natural surroundings to breaking point. Perhaps the paintings contain both elements of this darkness and foreboding while simultaneously capturing their beauty and achievement. What truly is their nature if it is not a reflection of humanity itself? By setting her keen eye on a fresh set of sites, the artist moves above street level to where the true structure of a city begins to reveal itself, with arterial roads and synaptic lights. These places, which forever change as lives pass through them, are presented in their natural motion. Flat abstract shapes, through the selective inclusion of detail, build up breathtaking scenes that are familiar yet uncomfortably new.
The Arc de Triomphe, set against its surroundings becomes suddenly diminutive in scale. Has it lost its relevance or does it still carry the identity of a Nation? The iconic Chrysler building stands tall in the foreground, its beauty contrasting with the monotonous skyscrapers around it. Tower Bridge, reduced almost to a silhouette, is still unmistakable, and St Paul’s illuminates the night like a beacon.
What is it about these cities and architectural icons that have lodged themselves so concretely into the landscape of our psyche? Dubnyckyj confronts this question and focuses our attention in this poignant body of new paintings.