Bread

Technique: Wood, mixed media.
Size: 50 × 35 × 5 cm.

The work belongs to the "Breads" series, a cycle central to Osmolovsky's output that he began developing in the second half of the 2000s. The relief is carved in wood and reproduces the structure of a bread crumb: its random, baking-born pattern is turned into a strictly mirrored, symmetrical design, while the dark surface makes the object recall an icon. Hung as a group on the wall, such "breads" form a kind of iconostasis, the reference to icon painting reinforced by the Christian symbolism of bread as the body of Christ. The series belongs to the artist's period of formal enquiry, after he had deliberately moved from the Moscow actionism of the 1990s towards the object and sculpture.