Self-deception
Ilya Martynov
Mixed media
2026
The sculpture ‘Self-Deception’ draws on the archetypal image of Pinocchio –
a character whose lies are traditionally revealed by his nose growing longer. In this interpretation, however, the mechanism of
distortion turns inwards. The nose is no longer directed outwards towards the
the outside world, but grows into the hero’s body, transforming the lie into an act of inner destruction and deformation.
The work explores self-deception not as a social act, but as an intimate
and self-contained process. The nose growing inwards becomes
a metaphor for psychological poisoning – a lie that finds no way out
and turns against the subject. The sculpture translates the moral category
into physical experience: here, untruth takes on an organic nature, akin
to a tumour, a foreign body or a root growing through the flesh.
This transforms the fairy-tale motif into an existential statement about the
nature of human consciousness.
Dissolution
video
8’44’’
2026
Within this audiovisual field, the erotic image undergoes a process of aesthetic repression, whereby the body forfeits its status as an object of contemplation and is transformed into a Lacanian trace of desire — the objet petit a. Ravel’s music, operating as a form of sublimation, organises the flow of libidinal energy into an intricate orchestral architecture, whilst the visual blur shifts representation into a state of perceptual deficit. Their interplay does not produce an image of love, but rather the structure of desire as such — perpetually incomplete, constantly displaced, and fundamentally resistant to final symbolisation.
Vimeo
SELF-PORTRAIT
3D printing
2025
VIDEO
VIMEO
The Last Day of Pompeii_2025
video
04’43’’
An experimental film that balances between dream and reality, the everyday flow of random encounters and symbols. Through collage aesthetics, unexpected chronicle, and fragmented scenes, the author explores the sense of randomness in our lives—and poses a provocative question: what if it’s all a prewritten script? What if there is no such thing as reality, fate, or chance at all?