1976
oil on canvas
143 x 266

Marina Mstislavovna Neyelova (born 1947), theatre and film actress, worked for many years in the Sovremennik Theatre. Honoured Artist of the RSFSR, Laureate of the Lenininist Komsomol Prize. The artist gave expression to one of the most characteristic interests of the ‘70s Generation – depiction of carnivals, various types of shows and festivities. Bulgakova depicts the world like a theatre arena with sharp and tense dramatic action. Reality is presented as if in a double reflection – both as a graphic treatment of a famous actress and as a fanciful on-stage action. The usual constraints of the portrait genre were shifted. A composition with the action occurring as it were on the front of the stage develops in linear manner in the foreground of the picture. The fragile figure of the actress is presented in the centre, on the stage itself, which is divided in two by the curtain. The heroine of the portrait – a creative feeling and thinking person – is juxtaposed with the actors of a play, symbolizing joy, grief, and the struggle between good and evil. The concrete theatrical personages and details are interlaced with colour and rhythmic passages representing none other than the “author’s remarks.” All of this helps make the graphic content more complex and enriches the plastic language. The coupling of two different dimensions – “seen” and “experienced” – is a characteristic feature of the metaphorical art of the Moscow artists of the ‘70s Generation.