Red Snowflake

The eclectic, colorful, and absurd art of Irina Korina emerges from the simplest materials and things that are transformed into carnival‑like scenery of everyday life. A theater designer by training, Korina works as a spatial artist, forming and conceptualizing environments. Her installations are distinguished by a constructed dramaturgy, often including psychological intrigue.

Green Snowflake and Red Snowflake are part of the project Humiliated and Elated, shown at XL Gallery in 2016. The installation consisted of two parts. Psychedelic works on paper were mounted under glass on metal holders placed under illuminated lampshade‑like fringed canopies. Each sheet reproduced out‑of‑context clichéd phrases: “But for some reason I can't,” “Everything is wrong,” “But no...,” “Probably the day after tomorrow,” “I'll become a zero,” “Well, it's probably too much,” “Like in a film,” and so on. The symbol of the project was the phrase “Fatalism + Cynicism” and an image of two swans. Giant dreamcatchers, garlands, metal snowflakes, and other festive decorations hung from the ceiling. By capturing these incongruous afterthoughts of the society of spectacle, Korina exposes the cultural memory of the collective unconscious. The large metal snowflake becomes a heavyweight phantom of a childhood memory left in the distant past.