A Parallel World

Julia Bogatova's illustrations to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are works of madness and genius. Mathematically regulated and paradoxical, all at the same time, they are both fairytales and works of wisdom rolled into one. Entering this particular realm of "madness", the artist does more than merely illustrate various extracts from the books. She leads her own parallel life to that of Lewis Carroll's heroes, translating the verbal meanings and intonations into another language - the language of painting and drawing. This translation is effected with remarkable elegance, employing a wealth of artistic resources, inventiveness and carefully chosen accents (dynamic inclusions of colour and the narrative logics of drawing). Leafing through the books, the reader will be delighted to find such a profound correspondence between the text and the masterly, exquisite illustrations.
The artist closely follows the writer and his heroes, charting the twists and turns of these unbelievable, elemental images and their sudden transformations into nothingness. Falling into the abyss of the impossible, they expectedly turn out to be wholly unremarkable, unextraordinary phenomena.
Everything interacts - the world of thoughts, the world of games, the world of the real and the world of illusions. We do not know how Julia Bogatova enters and penetrates this state; herein lies her special gift of reincarnation. What is clear, however, is that in order to achieve her aim, she employs extremely daring devices with great precision. Following the laws of collage and Pop Art, Bogatova uses seemingly incongruous elements of different artistic styles. Every clash of styles leads to the discovery of an extremely exact, witty and all-accepting nuance.
The main sections of the book begin with large abstract pictures inside a frame, representing the ragged edge of a hole. Although the pictures are abstract, a realist or surrealist content can still be read in places, playing with the moods of the book. The ragged relief-like edges link us up to the other reliefs scattered throughout both books. The result is proof that an abstract style exists. Its ideological purity and chastity are somewhat shaken and unsettled, however, shifted in the direction of the book. Strewn across the two works, the Suprematist elements clash with the scrupulously drawn figures of the characters. These elements incorporate their own falling shadows. This particular form of Suprematism is also shifted, ever so slightly, in the direction of the book. The thin pencil drawing requires close scrutiny. While the refined pencil work and unexpected representational discoveries are perfect illustrations of the text, they are also independent works of art in their own right. This particularly applies to the images of the White Rabbit, the smile of the Cheshire Cat, the Dodo and the Queen.
Independent of the book and its architecture, one very important factor is the self-value of each page. The sheets follow one after the other - the stylistic leavings and hintings, the sharp inculcation of reliefs, even the feathers of divine birds and the careful positioning of all these unexpected occurrences throughout the books - leading the reader into an audacious and exciting game, joyous and almost never-ending.

Anatoly Zaslavsky (academician, culturologist, professor)