Vera Iliatova's Nostalgic Paintings at Monya Rowe Gallery Reference Poussin and St. Petersburg

Vera Iliatova presented her solo exhibition 'Nothing is True and Everything is Possible' at Monya Rowe Gallery from February 20 to March 28, 2020. Located at 224 W 30th Street #1005 in New York, the show featured recent oil-and-acrylic paintings that evoke nostalgic memories of 1980s St. Petersburg. Iliatova's compositions demonstrate masterful skill, with her 2020 title work echoing Nicolas Poussin's 1655 painting 'Saints Peter and John Healing the Lame Man' through similar poses derived from Roman antiquity. The artist's color palette employs granite grays and warm pink grays reminiscent of St. Petersburg's riverbanks and distinctive climate. Figures in her paintings wear clothing spanning from the 1960s to contemporary thrift shop finds, creating temporal dislocations. Teenage girls appear in industrial settings with emotionally detached interactions, reflecting both nostalgia and lost connections. Iliatova's painterly technique combines academic precision with Gerhard Richter-esque blurred backgrounds, merging classical and contemporary approaches. The exhibition explores themes of time, memory, and displacement through surreal, anachronistic landscapes.