LONDON.- On August 18, 2022, the first solo exhibition of digital artist Maxim Zhestkov, titled Waves, will illuminate every surface of London’s W1 Curates exhibition space — inside and out. With new work displayed across the facade’s 3 floors of bespoke LED screens and on every wall of the interior, Maxim will make his London debut via an immersive digital art experience in the commercial heart of the city.

Waves meditate on its titular phenomena as the fundamental elements of change in digital and physical systems; waves merge, waves disrupt, and, if synchronized enough, they acquire system-shifting force. Cultural shifts, spiritual breakthroughs, and wi-fi connections can all be better understood as products of the interactions of waves. As physical and digital systems become less and less distinct, the ability to acknowledge similarities between the two can make our everyday thoughts more creative.

Maxim’s broader oeuvre is built on conceptual investigations of the building blocks of the physical and digital worlds. Each work is an effort to transform a fundamental principle of creation into a rousing spectacle. In Maxim’s words: “It is fascinating how structures could be assembled by themselves, following the basic underlying rules of our world. Any material, including living matter, forms using the same set of rules, and I think that this is something that we take for granted, but it is truly astonishing when you think about it.”

Mark Dale, founder of W1 Curates says “[W1 Curates is] a public art platform dedicated to bridging the gap between digital art and the traditional art world. Maxim’s artwork lends itself very well to FLANNELS new innovative phygital basement space, which will house brand new state-of-the-art floor to ceiling digital screens, providing a unique interactive experience for the viewer. It’s an honour to share new work from a true pioneer of digital art who remains so passionate about the potential of virtual worlds.”

Artist Statement

A wave— a disturbance of the established order — encompasses dynamics as an inherent part of our world. Waves bring the change, oscillations, and fluctuations, which spread across objects and connect them to entangled networks of all interrelated and continuous events. Inseparable from distortions, they are themselves messages that indicate transformations and shifts of the established order.

Waves are primary signals permeating the world and a universal language of nature that underlies both our biological and technological systems. By covering the world with webs of electromagnetic signals, we have expanded our neural systems and can now connect with others able to decipher the coded messages. Interfering and merging, waves change their nature and — when synchronized — grow and transform into a greater entity with the potential to generate a transformative flux.

Connecting particles into mighty flows, Waves is an examination of shifts of energy in complicated systems that lead to the inevitable transformation of those systems. Simulated by an algorithm, the world of this digital artwork is intentionally simplistic and therefore inextricably predictable. However, the rules and principles of this visual complexity are hidden from the viewer, much like the incomprehensible quantum phenomena that define the physical world.

The only thing certain about our world is that it is changing constantly. Nevertheless, eternal movement includes repetition, and transformation is cyclical. Between extremes of peaks, no path is linear, and every shift echoes across time.

Maxim Zhestkov (b. 1985) is a digital artist based in London. He merges his studies in architecture, sculpture, motion graphics, color, and sound, to dramatize the intersection of the digital and the physical as a critical site for imagining the aesthetic possibilities and psychological implications of a “phygital” reality. Working as an independent designer, Maxim has worked with clients like Adidas, IKEA, BMW, Google, Playstation and Adobe and has been awarded with many industry awards: a Red Dot Award, D&AD, iF Design Award and the ADC Award. Maxim Zhestkov’s work has been presented internationally in shows at major institutions, including Decentral Art Pavilion Venice (2022), Unit London (2021), Contemporary Istanbul (2021), MIT (2019), Modern Art Museum, Shanghai (2019), and the Hermitage Museum (2019). Maxim’s work has also shown at contemporary art festivals, such as Cosmoscow (2021), ART021 (2020), ArtBasel Miami (2019), and Ars Electronica Festival (2018).