Les objets d'enfance 03, 2021

Konstantin Kornakov  

In the series Childhood Objects, Moscow-based artist Konstantin Kornakov explores intimate memory through a domestic universe reduced to its essential forms. Tables, chairs, dressers, wardrobes and lamps appear isolated within dark, silent spaces, as if suspended outside of time. These ordinary, familiar objects become carriers of a deep emotional resonance.

Created as digital drawings, the works are defined by Kornakov’s distinctive visual language: rigorous composition, pared-down geometric volumes and a restrained palette of greys, whites and blacks. The precise, almost theatrical treatment of light shapes the space and places the objects into a state of tension, appearing either motionless or on the verge of collapse.

As the series unfolds, order gradually gives way to disruption. Furniture begins to topple, stack and fragment. This visual transformation evokes the fragility of childhood and the way memories shift and reassemble over time. What matters is no longer the object itself, but what it retains of lived experience, absence and silence.

Positioned between intimate narrative and symbolic abstraction, Childhood Objects offers a poetic reflection on memory, loss and the formation of identity. Through a minimalist aesthetic and a quietly charged emotional atmosphere, Kornakov invites the viewer to project their own recollections onto these seemingly simple yet deeply resonant scenes.