Art: After the Rainbow by Oksana Reznik

Fever Dream

Within an instant everything else faded out into the background, and they felt the universe shift into place. They had not been aware that it was not harmonious before.

“I’ve met you,” she said.

“I don’t think so,” he replied, “but I know what you mean.”

They stood side by side, her fingers holding a glass that was fuller of red wine than not, a mere prop in a lazy grip. His hands were in his pockets and he leaned against the wall. She stared, wondering how she ever saw anything else in the room but asking herself if she ever really saw anything at all until now. She set the glass down suddenly with force, not feeling connected to her hand. He did not notice.

“You don’t believe in this.” He gestured out at the mingling people, the commotion and depthless noise. Neither of them could tell their friends faces apart from the rest of the crowd.

“No,” she replied, “no one does.”

“A lot of no ones,” he murmured vaguely, running his hand through his hair, a sarcastic smile playing at his lips.

“What do you believe in then?” she asked, a hint of defensiveness in her tone.

“Nothing,” he shrugged dismissively, “also, everything.”

She laughed because he thought he had made sense, because he was not trying to be cryptic or mysterious. It irritated her. She was irritated at the emptiness of the room, and because he made it clear.

Without exchanging a word or a glance, they walked outside where the air felt electric. Her movements were mechanical and awkward. She wondered for a moment looking at the street if her eyes were deceiving her. If she reached out and touched the sidewalk, would the sweat on her hand leave a smudge, as if she had touched watercolor paint? If a storm came along, would the concrete fold over like cardboard?

“Its one of those nights were everything feels off,” she said, “like there’s something off about the entire city. Maybe the entire world. And no one seems to realize it.”

“Except you,” he answered, nodding towards the stars illuminating the sky, a storm on the horizon. She noticed that he stood as if he felt glued to the ground, immobilized by the wind rushing through the trees.

“Maybe we have met before,” he announced, his voice trailing off as he said, “somewhere.”

She followed his gaze upwards, catching a glimpse of the freckle on his right cheek. She recognized every slope and curve on his illuminated face from nights home alone chain smoking on the stairs outside of her apartment. He was the figure in the smoke that danced in the air. She knew him from dreams of a room where the moonlight danced on the ceiling.

She looked at him some more. She had a sudden, violent desire to order him to leave. There was something disgusting about him being on the street, an angel in a bar alleyway.

Their hands clasped in a frantic effort to escape from the feeling the night exuded. The storm approached in the sky. She broke their grip, feeling something inside her shift. The consciousness she thought was hers no longer was. It was hers, it was his, it was something else entirely.

“There’s so much more nothing than I thought there was,” he said as he diverted his gaze to his shoelaces with a startling laugh.

“There’s so much more to lose than I thought there was,” she said flatly, completely still as the rain began to fall and lightning lit up the glistening sidewalk in colors reflected from the neon sign in the window of the bar. The sidewalk did not fold over like cardboard, but she still didn’t trust her eyes. She looked at him, acknowledging the terror in the intensity of the feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. It was one that could change the entire direction of her life, one that could destroy her if she let it in and lost it.

He stood, shaking his head gently at her doubt and apprehension. His face showed it all: he didn’t think of the future enough to let him doubt like this. The feeling did not terrify him.

“You feel that, right?” he said, “It can’t be lost.”

Maybe he was right. Maybe she would never quite manage to shake this, calling out in her sleep and forgetting her dream in the morning. Taking the long way home and never admitting to herself that she was hoping to run into anyone. Spending early mornings by the beach without acknowledging the force that brought her to the water, staring out at the restless waves.

She gave him one last glance before she walked into the night, hoping with her entire being that he would find her again and knowing that he would not. She felt herself disappear, finding solace in the voluntary nature of the action.

You feel that, right? It can’t be lost.

“It already is.”

In the artist’s words:

Oksana Reznik
Lviv, Ukraine

In my artworks, I explore human presence in the environment and the trail that remains, combining my own feelings, memories, and imagination with a certain place or situation.

Education: 2013 – PhD, Lviv National Academy of Arts

Exhibitions:

2020 – “What to Wear” – 16 April – 9 June, 2020, online exclusive on ARTSY.com; Curator, bG Gallery, Santa Monica, California

2020 – Publication in the Flora Fiction Literary Magazine, Spring 2020: Volume 1, Issue 1

2018 – International Painting Triennial of Carpathian Region – Silver Quadrangle 2108.

2017 – Featured in Spring 2017: Vol. 1 Best Artworks printed catalog issued by Saatchi Online Art Gallery (USA)

2016 – Personal exhibition: “Land” – 29 March – 17 April 2016, ICONART Contemporary Sacred Art Gallery, Lviv, Ukraine.

2014 – “Credibility Theory” – Modern Art Research Institute of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine

2011 – “Intersections” – 18 – 28 May, 2011, Gallery of Lights, DUCTAC, Dubai Arts Center, UAE. Curator, ARTISLA Gallery, Berlin, Germany)

2010 – “Painting 2010” 20 August -5 September, 2010, IV Ukranian Trienniale, Kyiv, Ukraine. Organizer, Ukrainian National Union of Artists.

https://www.saatchiart.com/OksanaR