Igor Manko
Visual Discoveries
image: Igor Manko from"36 Views of Mount Kara-Dag: The Black Mountai"n
IGOR MANKO: VISUAL DISCOVERIES by Guennadi Maslov
Life in modern Ukraine does not necessarily foster the formation of a poetic mindset. Existing in a vague equilibrium between progress and dormancy, the culturally rich Ukrainian soil has yet to produce a fresh generation of artists and intellectuals capable of embracing the contradictory transformations of the last 20 years of the country’s life. Luckily this new breed will have something to lean against in its precarious emergence. Although it appears to be subdued, there exists a thin layer of individuals ready to become the base of the new generation of the future, uniquely Ukrainian culture. This culture is unlikely to become monolingual or monoethnic. It would be unwise to predict anything different in the unstoppable currents of today's global cultural milieu. This future culture may find a strong footing in the work of contemporary artists like Igor Manko - a photographer and language expert.
Being a linguist seems to have a mysterious connection to one's ability to efficiently translate life's visuals into photographic images. A good translation is never too literal. Filtering his surroundings through the camera optics and his unusually youthful perception of the world, Igor Manko produces images of sophistication and chasteness. His is not a precipitant art. The artist gives himself plenty of time to scrutinize and absorb his subject. Perhaps, Manko follows his guru Katsushika Hokusai who famously said:
All I have produced before the age of seventy is not worth taking into account. At seventy-three I have learned a little about the real structure of nature, of animals, plants, trees, birds, fish and insects. In consequence when I am eighty, I shall have made still more progress. At ninety I shall penetrate the mystery of things; at one hundred I shall certainly have reached a marvelous stage; and when I am a hundred and ten, everything I do, be it a dot or a line, will be alive.
The optical metamorphosis of trivial things into psychological statements lies behind the unobtrusive beauty of many of the artist’s works (The Sky Signs. Belgrade Dreams. Leonardo.). The lyrical and sophisticated tone of these images is hard to underestimate in today's world preoccupied with non-esoteric pursuits.
The Kara-Dag Series stands apart and arguably above many of Igor Manko’s works. The universal aesthetics of earthly forms intermingles here with the pure joy of exploring the colorful habitat of a primitive beach community. Using the global language of randomly shaped masses of earth and sea, the photographer does not try to surprise us with the common and often banal juxtapositions. He makes nature a witness and an accomplice in his personal quest for mental generational connections (his ancestors lived in the area) and the desire to arrest the ever escaping moment. The series is far from completion, so we can only look forward to seeing more profound visual discoveries of the talented artist.