The Residence Gallery presents Ello Govna, an intergenerational exhibition of Robert Hawkins and Bora Akinciturk. The show brings together a survey of painted works displayed in a firing line of disorienting visual narratives. With a post-2020 National Geographic style feel, Robert and Bora pull references from the natural world, the world wide web and popular media. Despite a 30 year age gap between them, they find synchronicity, effortlessly collaborating in a hellish dreamscape. Sharing a similar sense of humour, wit and impending doom, their storytelling bravado provides for a dreamy, dystopian mash-up of the world at large.
Dog drools
grass grows over the room
like in the old, ruined Macondo
where time stopped
and ants took the little one away
mashed together with rats and mammoths
not killed in time
here to stay
not extinct
wizard waves his wand
and hopes to perform a miracle
and maybe the wizard can manage
if he makes it before
grass grows over the room
and the last mammoth is caught
and eaten
and statue is made out of mammoth fangs
it will be found in 20,000 years
and someone told me that it was found yesterday
you can build a city from coinage of gold
make it home for white doves
which will be a sign for the inhabitants
that the city is full of virtuous news
even despite the fact
that doves barely had a saying in choosing of a nest
no sinister evil will be in this city
and if someone aims at a woman with a gun
if only under premise of a very good reason
the city will be populated by knights
full of courage and bravery
full of memories of mammoths
who never managed to be killed
but who
despite this
could not befriend ants and rats
couldn't stay alive
and yet became extinct
and yet became extinct
— Natalya Serkova
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