In the still lifes of the Fragile cycle, the author depicts mainly 2 objects each, which is atypical for the still life genre. Contrary to classical teaching, there is no main and secondary here. In their fragility, a glass jar and a rusty metal box are equal. With such an allegory, the author seeks not to once again emphasize the "tenderness" of art (this idea is not new), but the fragility of understanding - artistic images, each other, the essence of things, life.
This is a kind of invitation to the viewer to think. The dualism of personal experience and pure aesthetics is also determined by technical solutions: the abstract background turns into hyperrealism towards the center of the composition, the plane turns into relief, sparkling materials coexist with bitumen and rust and make the image theatrical, shining in the spotlight, but at the same time dramatic.
The still lifes of this cycle are not an isolated statement, but part of the mosaic of the author's world, which Irina Kotina creates from fragments, allusions, memories and dreams.
“We all have the experience of an interrupted dream when you just wake up and experience the dream that happened as a reality. Then the fragile image dissolves and is lost, it is important to have time to catch and save it,” the author says.