Kontur Fair 2026 "Traces We Leave: Graphics as a Space of Memory and Future"
At the Kontur Graphics Fair, held in Nizhny Novgorod from May 14 to 17, Space Four gallery presented a booth built around the concept "Traces We Leave: Graphics as a Space of Memory and Future." The exhibition brought together works by four artists — 0331c, Ilya Shalashov, Danya Akulin, and Anna Yardy. Their pieces explore memory through the recording of individual and collective experience that shapes the images of the present and looks toward the future.
The guiding concept is an aesthetic field of intersections, where three distinct approaches to graphics form a dialogue about how we capture, transform, and make sense of the world around us — from stone and surface to gesture and inner feeling.
0331c The artist develops "raw" image-making techniques — working with found stones, carving graffiti into them with a scalpel and creating small sculptures, "petroglyphs of the present."
Ilya Shalashov Ilya Shalashov draws inspiration from natural objects in states of weightlessness and transformation, as well as from a search for primary, archetypal forms dictated by nature and material itself.
Danya Akulin Danya Akulin's graphics capture moments of silent light. Each line becomes the breath of stillness, where forms and spaces dissolve to find a new dimension.
Anna Yardy The artist's visual language engages with themes of the fragility of mental constructs, the simulacral nature of the surrounding world, and reflections on the nature of beauty, ephemerality, and human identity.
