EROS & ASHES
YULIA BAS AND PALINA ADRIANA
15.05 - 31.05.2026
Spazio Sasseti, Via deim Sasseti 1, Florence
Curated by WHY NAT
In collaboration with Aria Art Gallery
Eros and Ashes
The works of Palina Adriana and Yulia Bas originate from a mutual point of rupture—moments in which personal structures give way, unsettling both emotional certainty and established modes of expression. Yet neither practice treats loss as a final condition. Instead, each artist approaches transformation as a continuous, active process: a passage through fragmentation toward renewal, where identity is not simply restored but lately formed. At the core of both practices is a redirection of energy. What was once projected outward—toward another, toward stability, toward fixed meaning—turns inward. In this movement, Eros shifts from a relational force to an internal principle: a dynamic through which the self restructures and sustains itself. Transformation here resists linear progression or resolution. It unfolds in cycles, refusing closure and remaining open to constant reinterpretation. Across both bodies of work, dissolution and renewal remain inseparable, coexisting within a shared field where vulnerability, embodiment, and reconstruction converge.
Palina Adriana’s series follows an inner movement from relational dependence toward autonomy, articulated through emotional phases of fragmentation, dissolution, and reformation. Each painting marks a moment within this cycle—not as a fixed narrative, but as part of an ongoing, recursive state of becoming. Her use of ancient Greek titles does not prescribe meaning but instead opens the work outward—suggesting stages within a broader continuum while preserving ambiguity. These references act as points of access rather than explanation, allowing interpretation to remain fluid and subjective.
Color occupies a central role in her practice, functioning as a direct expression of inner states. A palette dominated by indigo, blue, green, and violet stems from a deeply internal perception shaped in part by synesthetic experience. Each tone is carefully calibrated, carrying a distinct emotional charge that renders color almost tactile—less a surface quality than an extension of the body.
This physical dimension is integral to her process. Beginning with movement, Palina Adriana uses the body to access and locate feeling before translating it into paint. Forms develop through gesture rather than depiction, resulting in fragmented figures that convey emotional states rather than anatomical precision. The body becomes a site where memory, tension, and transformation intersect—holding vulnerability and control in balance.
Central to this process is the reintegration of Eros, understood as a previously externalized masculine energy, back into the self. This return generates a sense of independence that does not oppose intimacy but deepens it, grounding identity in self-sufficiency rather than relational definition. Her paintings sustain a subtle tension between immediacy and withdrawal. While affectively present, they resist full disclosure, preserving space for projection and interpretation. In this way, the work avoids resolution, holding transformation as an open and continuous condition.
For Yulia Bas, rupture triggers not only a personal collapse but also a breakdown of artistic language itself. From this disintegration, a new approach develops through action rather than intention. The repeated gestures of marking and smudging charcoal become a way of engaging what cannot be fully articulated—an ongoing negotiation between control and release, presence and erasure. Rejecting mediated tools and the use of color, Yulia Bas works directly with her hands and dry materials, maintaining close contact with the surface. Meaning is not pre-established but gradually uncovered through process. Repetition establishes a steady rhythm, allowing instability to persist without resolution, while translating emotional disarray into a form of continuity.
A decisive moment occurs with the introduction of her wedding dress. Cut open and expanded, the garment shifts from a symbol of unity into a site of rupture and transformation. Each incision operates simultaneously as wound and release, turning memory into material and pain into spatial form. Destruction here becomes productive—an opening through which identity and future possibilities can be reconsidered.
At the heart of Yulia Bas’s practice is the understanding that transformation is both physical and psychological. The works do not depict change; they perform it. Figures appear divided yet vital, suspended within vast, unstable spaces that position the self as both fragile and enduring. Within this framework, Eros and Ashes are not opposing forces but interdependent states. Eros acts as a force of expansion, desire, and vitality, while ashes signal what remains after dissolution. Yulia Bas situates her work precisely at their intersection, where breaking becomes a necessary condition for renewal, and where the self is continuously reshaped through its own unraveling.
WHY NAT