Rita Maikova & Tamsin Morse: A Theatre for Dreamers

Fluid, shifting forms, stormy skies and flashes of light. A Theatre For Dreamers at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Tower Bridge, brings together the work of two painters, Rita Maikova and Tamsin Morse, whose practices draw on the power of storytelling to imagine new ways of being in the world.

 

For Ukrainian artist Rita Maikova art-making is a form of healing and resilience – a way of tapping into her unconscious mind to envision alternative modes of existence. Her paintings are populated by fantastical characters that have followed her through the different stages of her life, mutating in form and meaning over time. In this latest body of work, perhaps her most intimate to date, we are introduced to a series of new creatures that are elemental and nurturing, seemingly risen from the earth itself to act as guardians and protectors.

 

In Fluffy Hugs we encounter a family of soft, rotund beings, made of something like moss. There is a deep sense of connection between each of them, as well as with their surroundings. Cradled in their arms are eggs – a symbol of fertility and future potential. Meanwhile, Familia imagines a different kind of family portrait. Here, the creatures have a luminescent, almost spectral quality that draws on Maikova’s childhood memories of playing in the snow at night. The ‘children’ in this scene are watched over by their parents – who are also a light source, guardians against the looming dark – as they stretch out their legs and pounce on one another. These works reflect on Maikova’s own experiences of caring for a young child, but also on her rebirth as a mother.

 

This theme is perhaps most obvious in Dreaming, in which a winged woman lies sleeping beneath a bountiful landscape. Streams of silvery water pour from the terrain onto her body, while egg-like forms sit cosily tucked into nests. In the background, a fire or volcanic-like eruption bursts between two craggy forms. Each elemental presence hints at the idea of renewal and growth, but also upheaval, a world in the process of becoming; the darkening sky signalling the proximity of the unknown.

 

Tamsin Morse’s paintings likewise balance beauty with uncertainty and violence. Her complex compositions weave together references from art history, mythology and contemporary life, highlighting the cyclical nature of history and the issues that persist across time. The largest work in the exhibition, A Painting About Journeying; Refuge of the Caryatids, depicts a tableau-like scene beneath a billowing banner held aloft by two caryatids. Yet this is a painting not of order, but of flux. The sky and sea swirl into one another, wrapping around the figures who themselves appear on the edge of descending into formlessness, as boundaries of space and time begin to dissolve. We glimpse Caravaggio here, Michelangelo's finger there, the raft of Medusa, a man in a Hawaiian shirt, an Alsatian dog. The effect is that of a collective fever dream, one that continually draws us back to the same moments.

 

Elsewhere, we encounter a horse having wings sewn onto its back and a pig being scrubbed by three women. Both scenes hover between the mythological and the domestic, the fluid brushstrokes and touches of fluorescence again lending the works a dream-like quality. At the same time, they are paintings about illusion and performance – the horse dressed up as Pegasus, the pig ritually cleansed. Here, as in Journeying, Morse invites us to reflect on how narratives are constructed: how we choose what to see and believe, and how those choices shape our understanding of reality.

 

In another work, the canvas is split in two by two modern-day genies who have escaped from their bottle and are seen fighting in a plume of smoke in the sky. To the left of them is what appears to be an idyllic pastoral scene – a tree laden with fruit, people walking through the fields, a cerulean river – while on the right, we are shown an almost hellish vision of destruction. Again, it is a painting that rewards deeper contemplation – the longer we spend with it, the more it reveals: a pool of blood-like liquid being lapped by a dog, the way a woman’s shadow leaks down her legs as if she herself is bleeding.

 

Together, Maikova and Morse’s paintings draw us into states of transformation – places where myth, memory and lived experience intertwine, and where vulnerability, uncertainty and hope are held in delicate balance.