However, if in Japan shibari is viewed aesthetically, a Western viewer sees it otherwise. Placed within a foreign culture, shibari loses its aesthetic qualities and becomes something else, exciting the lowest instincts of a person capable of violence. Namely the problem of perceiving phenomena out of context is the theme of this entire series.

In his paintings, Ivan Plusch puts the figures of naked and bound women in unexpected places, thereby introducing a new social context, inviting the viewer to go beyond the common interpretation of sadomasochism. The artist poses the question – to what extent are we chained to society, to the everyday life of the urban environment? Or is it about the role of women in a society in which gender equality and equality per se are empty words? The leitmotif of all Ivan Plusch’s art – movement as a transformation of the body in space – in this series becomes the idea of immobilisation. A living being entwined with ropes and the practice of shibari itself become a metaphor for the lack of freedom of Man, which we cannot overcome either physically or spiritually. Ivan Plusch manages to combine two different styles in one canvas. Against a realistic background, Plusch uses “colouring” with rotating figures, thickly painted and still wet on the sides, which makes the image deform due to the force of gravity. Thus, the effect of a silhouette is created, whose features have been struck by an unknown force.