EXHIBITION
Sacred Bones. Dry Bone
16.08 – 15.09.2025
Sasha Puchkova
ABOUT
Syntax Gallery is pleased to present new paintings, objects, works on paper, and video by Sasha Puchkova as part of the exhibition Sacred Bones. Dry Bone.
The bone sprouts and turns into a flower. The metamorphosis of solid matter, of anatomical relics and bones, acquires new flesh—they become vessels of personal and collective memory, imprints of historical and individual existence.
In the installation Sacred Bones. Dry Bone, Sasha Puchkova brings together two symbols. The first embody primordial reverence and unyielding memory, the foundation on which personal and cultural identity rests. The second—dry as the desert of time—become metaphorical instruments for exploring the threshold states of existence: fracture points and the moments that spark transformation. In Puchkova’s poetics, the dry bone is trauma, the experience of reliving, a painful attempt to breathe life into frozen structures.
Within the exhibition emerges an object composed of photopolymer bones—a parable about memory through matter. This fragment alludes to Valery Chtak’s iconic installation 44 Mops, encoded into the history of Syntax Gallery and, equally importantly, into the artist’s own personal mythology. Referencing a recognizable form, Puchkova transforms it—the bones, deceptively motionless, sprout with transparent polymer connections. The image is elusive: perhaps the echo of Balkan Baroque traces, the resonance of Gothic columns, or a hint at mutated flesh.
Puchkova approaches the bone as a symptom of crisis, a transitional state between helplessness and renewal, the limit of the organic and the living.
The bone sprouts and turns into a flower. The metamorphosis of solid matter, of anatomical relics and bones, acquires new flesh—they become vessels of personal and collective memory, imprints of historical and individual existence.
In the installation Sacred Bones. Dry Bone, Sasha Puchkova brings together two symbols. The first embody primordial reverence and unyielding memory, the foundation on which personal and cultural identity rests. The second—dry as the desert of time—become metaphorical instruments for exploring the threshold states of existence: fracture points and the moments that spark transformation. In Puchkova’s poetics, the dry bone is trauma, the experience of reliving, a painful attempt to breathe life into frozen structures.
Within the exhibition emerges an object composed of photopolymer bones—a parable about memory through matter. This fragment alludes to Valery Chtak’s iconic installation 44 Mops, encoded into the history of Syntax Gallery and, equally importantly, into the artist’s own personal mythology. Referencing a recognizable form, Puchkova transforms it—the bones, deceptively motionless, sprout with transparent polymer connections. The image is elusive: perhaps the echo of Balkan Baroque traces, the resonance of Gothic columns, or a hint at mutated flesh.
Puchkova approaches the bone as a symptom of crisis, a transitional state between helplessness and renewal, the limit of the organic and the living.
Sasha Puchkova (b. 1989) was born in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. She lives and works in Moscow. She works with graphics, ceramics, digital collage, VR, and creates objects and installations. She is a member of the groups Digital Object Alliance and “ШШШ” (ShShSh). She graduated as a graphic designer (2012), studied at St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design, Faculty of History and Theory of Art (2012–2014), at the British Higher School of Art and Design in Moscow, Media Design programme (2015–2016), and at the Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia in the “Interactive and Communication Media” workshop (2016–2019). She received her MA in Arts from the University of Manchester (UK) at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (2022).
She participated in the 6th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Yekaterinburg (2021), was a resident at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art Workshops (2022–2023), and of the 9th season of the Open Studios at Winzavod Contemporary Art Center, Moscow (2023). Her works are held in the collections of the Multimedia Art Museum (Moscow) and Micricollection (Italy).
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2024 Multiple Unknown. Set Projects, Moscow
Murder Code. DAIPYAT, Voronezh, Russia
2023 Something Is Wrong with This Kingdom. Sistema Gallery, Moscow
2022 Misanthrope. Most Wanted Gallery, Cube, Moscow
Hurricane Lily. Gallery 19, Moscow
2021 Look, There’s a Place for _. As part of the performative programme of the 6th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, UOMZ, Yekaterinburg
Your Letter, Unfortunately, Is Impossible to Understand. As part of a special project of the 6th Ural Biennial of Contemporary Art, Sinara Gallery, Yekaterinburg
2019 Sasha Puchkova’s Speculative Consilium “Linking to the Skin”, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow
Capture Map. Ekaterina Foundation, Moscow
Media Addiction. START project (pop-up format), Winzavod CAC, Moscow
Selected Group Exhibitions
2020 Ruins of the Stream. Digital Object in the Artistic Field, an experimental educational course on the “Blizhe” platform (Cosmoscow Foundation), online
The Feast, with the group ШШШ (ShShSh), Cube, Moscow
2019 Otherwise Festival. Institute H0, Zurich
Body Cyber Text Party. Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow
Blind Spot. Graduation exhibition of the Rodchenko School, Ekaterina Foundation, Moscow
2018 Becoming Unconscious / Trembling / With Eyes Wide Open / I See You / Surrender. HSE Gallery, Moscow
The Matter of Horror. Ground Solyanka, Moscow
She participated in the 6th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Yekaterinburg (2021), was a resident at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art Workshops (2022–2023), and of the 9th season of the Open Studios at Winzavod Contemporary Art Center, Moscow (2023). Her works are held in the collections of the Multimedia Art Museum (Moscow) and Micricollection (Italy).
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2024 Multiple Unknown. Set Projects, Moscow
Murder Code. DAIPYAT, Voronezh, Russia
2023 Something Is Wrong with This Kingdom. Sistema Gallery, Moscow
2022 Misanthrope. Most Wanted Gallery, Cube, Moscow
Hurricane Lily. Gallery 19, Moscow
2021 Look, There’s a Place for _. As part of the performative programme of the 6th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, UOMZ, Yekaterinburg
Your Letter, Unfortunately, Is Impossible to Understand. As part of a special project of the 6th Ural Biennial of Contemporary Art, Sinara Gallery, Yekaterinburg
2019 Sasha Puchkova’s Speculative Consilium “Linking to the Skin”, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow
Capture Map. Ekaterina Foundation, Moscow
Media Addiction. START project (pop-up format), Winzavod CAC, Moscow
Selected Group Exhibitions
2020 Ruins of the Stream. Digital Object in the Artistic Field, an experimental educational course on the “Blizhe” platform (Cosmoscow Foundation), online
The Feast, with the group ШШШ (ShShSh), Cube, Moscow
2019 Otherwise Festival. Institute H0, Zurich
Body Cyber Text Party. Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow
Blind Spot. Graduation exhibition of the Rodchenko School, Ekaterina Foundation, Moscow
2018 Becoming Unconscious / Trembling / With Eyes Wide Open / I See You / Surrender. HSE Gallery, Moscow
The Matter of Horror. Ground Solyanka, Moscow
