Three small paintings above The Mat by Yasy Bachurina at studiya., Seoul

Yasy Bachurina and the object that is never fully recognised

Preserved, Unfixed, a solo exhibition by Yasy Bachurina, ran from 17 to 29 October 2026 at studiya., an artist-run gallery in Jung-gu, Seoul. Art Curatorial Nomads curated the show, which brought together paintings, sculptures and objects.

Bachurina works across painting and sculptural objects. She starts from archaeological artefacts, sculpture, architecture and everyday things, and reworks them into new images and forms. She studied at the Moscow Academic College of Arts. In addition, she held a solo show at The Charoen Art Gallery in Bangkok in 2024.

The Greeters, a pair of green cast fiberglass forms
The Greeters (pair), 2026, cast fiberglass.
State of Immersion by Yasy Bachurina, acrylic and oil on canvas
State of Immersion, 2026, acrylic and oil on canvas.

Why Yasy Bachurina returns to the museum

The curatorial text starts with the museum. There, people gather objects, name them and give them a place. As a result, a familiar order lets a visitor linger over what might otherwise go unnoticed. For Bachurina, this is part of the appeal. Not everything has vanished, and a person can still return to some things. Yet a return does not always confirm a first impression. An object can stay the same while the encounter with it changes.

Detail of State of Immersion, oil and acrylic painting
Soul House, a foam relief by Yasy Bachurina
Soul House, 2026.

The works look like objects that have existed for a long time. Even so, they do not reconstruct a period or tell a single story. Instead, familiar forms return at unexpected sizes, in unexpected materials and in unexpected places. State of Immersion is a painting in acrylic and oil on canvas, 150 by 150 centimetres. The Greeters is a pair of cast fiberglass forms. For The Mat, she painted in oil on a wooden mat. Meanwhile, Soul House combines expanded polystyrene foam, texture paste, epoxy and resin.

The Mat by Yasy Bachurina, oil on wooden mat
The Mat, 2026, oil on wooden mat.
Detail of The Mat, oil painted on a wooden mat

In Untitled – Vitrine Assembly, a velvet-lined vitrine holds wood and mixed natural materials. Elsewhere, the floor piece Gathering lays out figures of wood, epoxy resin, foam, sand and soil within a drawn outline. Rubber flies sit around them.

Untitled - Vitrine Assembly, wood and natural materials on red velvet
Untitled – Vitrine Assembly, 2026.

Preserving without fixing

For Art Curatorial Nomads, preservation always involves choices: what to keep, how to name it, where to put it and what to guard it against. However, keeping a thing does not mean keeping one way of reading it. A name or a definition can stay accurate long after it has stopped being enough. In the exhibition, the paintings and objects sit side by side. They keep their differences and never merge into a single whole.

Small painting by Yasy Bachurina on a white wall

Artist: Yasy Bachurina / @yasybachurina
Photography: studiya. / @studiya.gallery
Location: studiya. / @studiya.gallery, 443 Cheongpa-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul

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