The Future of the Past series by Pavlo Makov

The Future of the Past series by Pavlo Makov began more than 20 years ago and has been enriched by the artist’s recent creative explorations during a period of transformations and upheavals.

Each work in this series has a unique layered structure and its own dramaturgy within a historical context. It is a cohesive romantic journey into the past and a dedication to the present, shaped by the intellectual purity and philosophical convictions of the author.

Rome, as an emblem of eternity, is depicted by the artist from a bird's-eye view, with near-perfect detail, such as the Colosseum. The panoramas and layouts of Ukrainian cities are harmonized, creating a continuous narrative of human history from antiquity onwards. Some individual lines and images appear to be interconnected, layered upon one another, reflecting the artist's constant visual and conceptual exploration, his desire to understand the world in its complexity and multiplicity.

This dichotomy is not the main direction of Makov’s work, but it represents a search for deep connections and the universality of cultures, skillfully combining elements and alluding to the ideas in Hermann Hesse's novel «The Glass Bead Game».