Clear Water, Riverbed of stone

The creative community MIRA, in collaboration with MYTH Gallery, presents the exhibition project “Clear Water, Riverbed of stone” by artists Neha Lavingia (India) and Ulyana Podkorytova (Russia), realized with the support of Threshold Art Gallery (India) and collectors Ekaterina Terebenina and Andrey Terebenin. This exhibition marks the first introduction of contemporary Indian art to the audience of Suzdal.

“Clear Water, Riverbed of stone” explores fragility and resilience, the visible and the hidden, the ephemeral and the eternal, creating a dialogue between two artistic practices centered on attention, deceleration, and the experience of time.

The artists from India and Russia converge not in form, but in method: both work through observation, bodily presence, and inner silence, allowing the place, the material, and the rhythm of nature to dictate the terms of their artistic expression. Neha’s watercolors capture the fragile beauty of fallen leaves and exist alongside Ulyana’s sculptures and graphics, which speak to spiritual search and collective memory. They are united by a common aspiration—to capture the ephemeral and give meaning to what might otherwise be lost.

Neha Lavingia’s watercolors demand a close, almost intimate gaze, immersing the viewer in visual silence. Their miniature scale, exquisite delicacy, and restraint bordering on abstraction bring them close to the poetic minimalism of haiku.

“Watercolor teaches me to live in the present and accept what happens. Once a drawing is finished, it’s finished; it’s hard to redo. It’s like a moment that has passed—even if you try to recreate it, it won’t be the same,” says Neha.

Ulyana Podkorytova’s works are shaped by the experience of inhabiting a place: walks at the foothills of the Himalayas, the white-stone architecture of Suzdal, the cold water of the Kamenka River, and the bodily interaction with the landscape. Specifically for this project, during an artist residency in Kideksha, she created a clay sculpture inspired by ancient animal reliefs.

The artist writes: “Knowing the laws of nature does not allow a person to subdue them. In a world filled with instability, it seems to me that acknowledging our powerlessness before the elements is precisely what opens the door to finding support. If we do not elevate ourselves but recognize that we are part of the flora, fauna, and landscape, then we are truly alive.”

The exhibition space is structured as a sequence of states: Lavingia’s watercolors create a visual silence, while Podkorytova’s sculptures and a soundscape of folk songs recorded during the residency engage the viewer bodily, restoring a sense of one’s own presence in space and time. The sound reflects the cyclical nature of seasons and becomes another form of capturing the ephemeral—a way to preserve and transmit what usually vanishes in an instant.

“Clear Water, Riverbed of stone” continues the summer project “If one finds a feather” at MYTH, which was held with the support of collectors Ekaterina Terebenina and Andrey Terebenin and the International Roerich Memorial Trust (India, Himachal Pradesh, Kullu, Naggar). This time, the exhibition unites the creative freedom of the artists with a deep, attentive relationship to place, transforming contemporary art into a means of experiencing time and space, where fragility and silence become sources of resilience and inner fortitude.