FIELD ARCHIVE — AUGUST :THE COMPASS TURNS EAST
A Prosaic Elegy for the Sixth Army at Stalingrad. Part I of VI — August 1942. Written by Lethe.
Field Observations prose cycle. Text and image sequence from the Alexandria studio channel.
01
the work
THE WORK
You Are Still Inside It is a long-form, research-driven body of work centered on Stalingrad and the Eastern Front.
It does not illustrate history. It constructs a historical interior where unresolved presences remain active.
The figures are not treated as symbols, political arguments, or anonymous historical matter. They remain singular lives suspended between disappearance and recognition.
Working from wartime photographs, testimony, battlefield remnants, and archival material, the paintings dismantle and reconfigure surviving traces until something latent within them begins to surface again.
Many of these individuals never saw the photographs that now carry them.
02
works
WORKS
Worth It
Ushanka
Traum
Nachtkampf
Barikardy Factory, November 1942
Group Figures
03
what remains
WHAT REMAINS
I am drawn almost exclusively toward the unknown: the encircled, the half-erased, those absorbed into mass historical movement whose individuality nonetheless remains visible.
The paintings do not seek nostalgia, spectacle, or heroization.
They attempt to restore singular human presence within industrial annihilation.
04
conversation
CONVERSATION
An interview on the Eastern Front, archival encounter, historical memory, and the compulsion behind the work.
05
practice
PRACTICE
The work develops through painting, collage, abrasion, layered pigment, and repeated return.
Historical material enters the studio through photographs, testimony, correspondence, maps, objects, and fragments.
The archive is not used as illustration. It is where the encounter begins.
Research and intuition remain inseparable within the work.
06
field notes / archive
FIELD NOTES / ARCHIVE
Verified images, dates, and sources only. Unknown information is marked unverified.
A Ricochet of Energy: A Conversation with Lethe
An edited conversation on the Eastern Front, historical memory, the individual within the event, and the compulsion behind the work.
Interview. Text and image sequence from the Alexandria studio channel.
07
about
ABOUT
The work proceeds from the understanding that certain historical conditions do not remain contained within chronology. They continue exerting pressure across generations: visually, psychologically, materially.
The front remains open.
correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE
For exhibitions, residencies, publications, studio visits, archival exchange, and serious conversation concerning the work.
08
lethe
LETHE
A position between memory and disappearance. The moniker under which the body of work proceeds.
