Ziggurat — in the architecture of Ancient Mesopotamia and Elam, a temple tower, a sanctuary. It consisted of high terraces (from three to seven) placed on top of each other with a temple on top.
A series of paintings by the PPSS group (Pavel Pepperstein, Sonya Stereostyrsky) "Ziggurats" (2022-2023) is a layering of square images on top of each other. It's like ziggurats seen from above, from the point of view of heaven. Only the central (smallest) image is visible in its entirety. This central image (picture) corresponds to the uppermost tier of the ziggurat, where the main sanctuary is located. Each of the ziggurat paintings in this series is a kind of prayer, an appeal to higher powers, ascending up the stepped structure. For example, the painting "Make love, not war!" is obviously a prayer for peace. The painting "Russian" is a prayer for Russia, for the sending of magical comfort to our land. The painting "The Breath of Art" is a mystical hope for the healing power of art. In the center of this picture is a picture from a textbook-instructions for artificial respiration, and to this picture the vandal hand of a bored student has drawn the figure of a grotesque doctor helping to breathe life into the patient's body. The painting "Sex" undoubtedly belongs to the area of the cult of love: basic ("lower") the tier of the image is a sacred landscape with a golden sky and an empty bed — a springboard for performing actions pleasing to Aphrodite. In the center of the picture, the deity of love appears in the form of a koala. The painting "The Sea" does not even require special comments, so clearly is the cult of the sea element and the creatures inhabiting it presented here. At the epicenter of the painting is an oceanic White Cube, the residence of a sea deity. The painting "Children playing in Space" resembles a temple dedicated to space and childhood at the same time. Children are astronauts who are aware of our entire planet as a spaceship. The painting "Umbilical Cord" is a cult structure dedicated to birth. The painting "Portrait of the artist in his youth" is part of the cult of the artist: in the center of the picture we see a self—portrait of a generalized painter created by a neural network. We will not comment on all ziggurats in order to leave more free space intended for the imagination and guesses of the viewer.
PPSS
