Saint Petersburg Toy Museum presents the first solo exhibition in Russia of works by the artist Valeria Kasyanova "All Roads Lead Home".
Valeria Kasyanova is a watercolor artist and illustrator who lives and works in Italy. The central image of the exhibition is the winged person, the human-bird. People-birds — of different skin colors, different ages, different occupations — all, one way or another, have prototypes among the people Valeria met along her life path. In some cases these images are more portrait-like, in others more composite, but in all cases the archetype of the human-bird acquires sincere emotional expression.
The exhibition will run until August 9, 2025.
Watercolor by Valeria Kasyanova
Watercolor by Valeria Kasyanova
Watercolor by Valeria Kasyanova
The central image of our exhibition is the winged person, the human-bird. Wings are an extremely polyvalent symbol. They can mean the ability to travel long distances (recall the talaria, the winged sandals of the god of travel Hermes), and spiritual flight (it is no coincidence that a state of inspiration and emotional uplift is often called being 'wings' or 'to be winged'), and generally something supernatural, beyond the ordinary (hence countless winged figures, whether human, animal or reptile, in myths and visual arts).
In Valeria's work these meanings echo one another. Her people-birds are, above all, wanderer-characters, beings temporarily without solid ground beneath their feet, having left one nest but not yet built another. The main source of inspiration for the artist here was her own life experience — memories of moves in childhood, of changing environments, of a suspended, intermediate, transitional state — between countries, between cultures, between mentalities.
Another aspect of wingedness is movement toward a dream, toward achieving goals, toward personal growth, toward a better fate. Valeria met many such winged people on her path, steadily following their chosen course.
