Conduit Gallery is honored to announce the second solo exhibition in the Conduit Gallery Project Room, of ceramic based paintings by Russian-born, Arizona-based Yana Payusova.

Payusova’s paintings and sculptures blend the styles and symbols of folk art, icons, graphic poster art, illustration, and comics, and reflect both her cultural heritage and her training in traditional Russian realist painting. The work in Is Your Halo On Too Tight?, created in part during her recent residence at C.R.E.T.A. in Rome, is Payusova’s attempt to make sense of our new reality. Highly detailed ceramic sculpture and a wall-based installation inspired by a Rube Goldberg machine explore how propaganda and misinformation operate within our news cycle and society as a whole.

States Payusova about the exhibition: “I’ve always been an avid fan of old Soviet propaganda posters and often show them to my students as examples of beautifully executed, well-designed images—though severely lacking in subtlety. They always felt old-fashioned, even benign. The word “propaganda” itself seemed lackluster, a relic of the Soviet past. That all changed when Russia invaded Ukraine. At first, the news seemed absurd: Russia fighting Nazis in Ukraine? Give us a break—what a ridiculous notion. Everyone was outraged. But within weeks, the public mood began to shift. To our disbelief and horror, we watched the propaganda machine spring into action, working seamlessly. Half the population remained outraged, while the other half began dutifully echoing Putin’s rhetoric.

As someone who grew up in the Soviet Union, I’m no stranger to the absence of information and government censorship, where the official party line was handed down from ‘above,’ though rarely believed.

Now, the utopian dream of democratized information has birthed a dystopia. Information is abundant, but so confusing and contradictory, that we must wade through a sea of post-truths, deepfakes, and a smorgasbord of conspiracy theories just to arrive at our own version of objectivity. Once we do, we cling tightly to our perspective, feeling perhaps a sense of relief. We decide that we’re right, and we favor those who share our viewpoint. Meanwhile, we dismiss the other side as ignorant and gullible, wishing they’d all take a one-way trip to Mars—and bring their sympathizers along.”

Yana Payusova was born in Leningrad, USSR in 1979. She received an MFA in Interdisciplinary Media Arts Practices from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She exhibits both nationally and internationally including recent venues at the Northern Clay Center (Minneapolis), Howard Yezerski Gallery (Boston), Tucson Museum of Art, Conduit Gallery (Dallas) and the New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum (Taiwan). In 2021, Payusova was an Artist-in-Residence at the Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center in Denmark, as well as a Visiting Artist at the Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass. In 2022, she was commissioned to create an installation for the new Real Unreal, Meow Wolf’s fourth permanent exhibit in Grapevine, Texas. She recently completed a summer residency at C.R.E.T.A in Rome. Payusova is an Assistant Professor of Practice and FYE Program Chair at the School of Art, University of Arizona in Tucson.

Artists in this Exhibition

• Yana Payusova

Artist Video