musetouch_issue_28

Painting calms me down and brings peace I need inside me, living in often stressful environment
(like most of us). I’m a terrible verbal communicator and I think art lets m-
e communicate effectively with people who have time to listen to me.
I also have this idea that there are some persons who can benefit from my art and/or writing.
They can find the connection with my stories I either paint on canvas or write on paper.
It’s healing for people to know that they are not alone with their life’s challenges.
If I start thinking logically why I paint, it loses its meaning for me. Paintings and the process
itself become worthless. As they are supposed to decorate someone’s interior space
and be enjoyed looking at, it’s difficult to find this special person who can both appreciate the
work and have the means to own it. This difficulty that every artist faces is the downside.
From where is your inspiration coming from?
The inspiration is generated from within me as a response to my thoughts and emotions. My
thoughts and emotions, though, get stimulated by the world outside me. I love to travel and
record my impressions in photos and words. (I authored two travel guide books-about Thailand
and Venice, and I co-authored a book about Nicaragua). It’s a different way of being creative
telling a story. Even though I spend most of my time not traveling, I get inspired by other
means-museums, contemporary artists, writers, movies, and even weather.
Are you romantic?
That’s funny, I’ve never thought of myself as a romantic because I’m an orderly,
goal-oriented, determined, and generally organized person. I’ve never
dreamt of things “living on a cloud” or wearing “pink sunglasses.”
At the same time, I think there are poetry, beauty, and Romanticism
to my art. I have a particular aesthetic for beauty. Much of it comes from my upbringing, where
art, music, ballet, theatre, literature, and dance surrounded me as a child back in Moscow.
I didn’t realize how important it actually was to my artistic development. I allow myself
to be romantic in my painting and when I travel. I just walk, take pictures, and absorb
life around me.
Imagination is the word...in some way crucial for your art, as far as I am noticing...
how does, or should, that word relate to an artist?
I paint rather realistically but what I paint can exist in our life but it doesn’t. This “imaginative
realism” comes from my close observation of life around me. A lot of it is symbolic. Imagination
can be discouraged as a past trend (the Surrealism movement, for example) in contemporary
art but I feel like it’s who I am as a person. Imagination is what makes scientists to invent
and discover and artists- to create.
How do you see? What is it about a scene or subject that speaks to you, makes you feel and
causes you to create a painting?
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