The creases of real folds, partly drawn from life, create a new abstract work each time, ever ready to transform and thus to destroy their earlier incarnations. Only four drawings hint at an unseen figure under the folds, yet even then a viewer cannot be certain whether it’s really there.

Chronologically speaking, a long procession of drawings is concluded with the Folds series, created during the Line of Contact project in Kaniv. Budnikov seems to reintroduce” abstract elements to a defined form as folds treacherously flex into recognizable shapes. Rumpled material, however, becomes a strikingly pertinent metaphor for the dangerous shifting world that affords no safe shelter. The roiling and shifting texture of baroque folds retains the abstract air of earlier drawings in its refusal to imitate recognizable forms.

The creases of real folds, partly drawn from life, create a new abstract work each time, ever ready to transform and thus to destroy their earlier incarnations. Only four drawings hint at an unseen figure under the folds, yet even then a viewer cannot be certain whether it’s really there.

(Vlada Ralko, Within Time, Kyiv, 2016)