#followme

I conceived the #followme series as an ironic take on the mismatch between the words and images on current social media. One long winter night, as I was scrolling through the infinite Instagram feed, it occurred to me that the landscape surrounding us is so much unlike the twittering language of hashtags. I decided to look up the most popular tags. Statistically, the most frequent tags are invitations to subscribe, or, to be more precise, to follow (or followme). Everybody wants to get as many subscribers and as many likes as possible. A generalized average user wants to represent themselves as “awesome” and “pretty.” I thought that the endless selfie posting is, in a way, a ritual with the ultimate goal to ascertain own existence and reassure others of it. Perhaps, assuming this paradigm, it is the most frightening thing to be left alone faced with an empty monotonous space, among the endless snowy expanse. I wanted to imagine such a generalized neutral landscape where it would be hard to identify anything related to the popular hashtags. When I juxtaposed a dusky landscape with the words that are unnatural for it, the resulting works seemed not so much ironic as tragic to me. I thought that all these “positively-charged” tags, pictures of self, the wish to gain more followers are manifestations of the fear of loneliness and death.

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #followme series

Pavel Otdelnov. #followme series

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #followme. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #followme. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #amazing. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #amazing. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #onedirection. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #onedirection. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #awesome. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #awesome. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #onedirection 2. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #onedirection 2. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #cool. 2018. б. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #cool. 2018. б. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #swag. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #swag. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #pretty. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #pretty. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #pink. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #pink. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #show. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #show. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #colorful. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #colorful. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #bestoftheday. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #bestoftheday. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #shopping. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #shopping. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #blue. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #blue. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #look. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #look. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #mylife. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #mylife. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #wow. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #wow. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #hot. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #hot. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #happy. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #happy. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

Pavel Otdelnov. #picoftheday. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

Pavel Otdelnov. #picoftheday. 2018. watercolours on paper 30x40

 

 

 

eng|рус