Details:
① Artwork:
Walking, knocking on the roots, and shaking the spruce paws #4
In this series of abstract artworks, “Walking, knocking on roots, and shaking the spruce paws,” AI created drawings of plant forms after being fed text from one of the artist’s sound works. These drawings were then machine-cut into wood, covered by soil to emphasize their meandering forms, and coated with resin to fossilize their compositions.
In considering how mythology and technology overlap, Jura Shust uses his art to explore the relationships between ritual and escapism. Through a combination of spiritual environments, archaic worldviews, and futuristic perspectives, Shust rethinks symbiotic relationships between the human psyche and the natural world through a practice that merges sculpture, video, and installation.
Specs:
③ Artist:
Jura Shust explores the relationship between ritual and escapism. Intrigued by semantic ambiguity, informational intoxication, and the universal aspiration for an out-of-body experience, he uses his wood, soil, and resin artworks to reflect on how the mythological overlaps with the technological. The sacral concept of incorporating the human mind into a global network and the modern movement toward decentralization inspire the artist to redefine ideas of spiritual environments. Additionally, by juxtaposing archaic worldviews with futuristic perspectives, Shust's work rethinks existing symbiotic relationships between the human psyche and the natural world. His practice merges sculpture, video, and installation to construct mental landscapes informed by ethnoreligious beliefs and biopolitical projects.
Jura Shust was born in 1983 in Maladzyechna, Belarus, and lives in Berlin, Germany. He earned his MA from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent, Belgium, and his postgraduate degree at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts (HISK), also in Ghent, Belgium.
Shust has mounted solo exhibitions at Management in New York City, NY (2023); Centrum in Berlin, Germany (2022); EXILE Gallery in Vienna, Austria (2021); the Vyksa Steelworks History Museum in Vyksa, Russia (2019); ING Art Center in Brussels, Belgium (2017); and elsewhere.
His work has been included in group exhibitions such as When The Sun Is Low The Shadows Are Long at GfZk Gallery in Leipzig, Germany, and Arsenal Gallery in Bialystok, Poland (2022); In the Field of the Other at Management in New York City, NY (2022); The 14th Baltic Triennial at The CAC in Vilnius, Lithuania (2021); The 4th Art Encounters Biennial in Timișoara, Romania (2021); Things We Sense About Each Other at the Baden Art Association in Karlsruhe, Germany (2021); After the Future at the Smena Center of Modern Culture in Kazan, Russia (2019); Highlights of S.M.A.K. Collection at the Strombeek Cultural Center in Ghent, Belgium (2019); and The Dutch Savannah at the Museum de Domijnen in Sittard, The Netherlands (2019); among others.
Shust's work is in the collection of the S.M.A.K. Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent, Belgium.