The mechanistic dullness of everyday reality is continuously ousting our contemporaries, pushing them into the space of the virtual world of their own making, where they play the lead role. The creation of such a world (we call it image, style, one’s own brand) has become a standard practice that leads to the ousting of the individual’s consciousness from everyday reality into a virtual space, where the promise of eternal life may well turn out to be true.

In his works, Ivan Plusch has found a visual manifestation of this phenomenon. His characters – populating an everyday reality depicted as mechanically as possible using a repeating pattern made with a sponge, or the monotonous blurring of the background – turn out to be merely streams of paint symbolising constant destruction, disappearance, the flow of time and the inability to live eternally. But those of them who have managed to create around themselves a kind of shell of their own, an invented world, can hope to live in it forever, at least partially realising the promise of eternal life.

Such a practice resembles autism – the mental disorder in which the creation of one’s own world and the withdrawal into it occurs, naturally making it difficult for the person to interact with the external world. Autism is becoming ever more common today. Moreover, the life of people today pushes them to create their own fictional world... Perhaps autistic disorders will subsequently become the norm, as is today the schizophrenic type of behaviour (Carl Jung). Plusch focusses on this issue because it relates to him personally. Projecting himself onto the heroes of his paintings, Ivan Plusch invents for each of them a world of their own, in which the hero can remain, and he thereby fulfils for them that same promise of eternal life...