""Evening Chess"" Painting

Artist Bio (a brief biography and what my art is about) I was born and raised in Odessa, Ukraine. I began studying fine art in childhood, in 1973, at the Odessa Art Studio in the Vorontsov Palace. In 1985, I graduated from the Odessa Art College, Department of Painting. By worldview and character, I am a humanities scholar—a philosopher, a professing Christian. I grew up and was raised in the Odessa underground of the 1980s, interacting with artists from the so-called non-conformist movement, and experimented with various styles and movements. For a time, however, I painted in the styles of impressionism and realism, in the genre of urban landscapes; I enjoyed recognizing the enduring value of the givenness of existence. There is a certain boundary in contemplating the real world, beyond which more than physical reality is revealed. I strived to capture this on canvas, and when I succeeded, it was always a wonderful experience. Since 2015, I began to study the history of modern art in more depth and explored the styles of contemporary art. I am most drawn to styles and movements such as abstraction, abstract expressionism, conceptual abstraction, and color field painting. My creative method in painting draws on the ideas of V. Kandinsky, expressed in his book "On the Spiritual in Art." In particular, Kandisky wrote: “The Holy Spirit cannot be depicted objectively, only non-objectively. This is my goal: to embody light from light, the streaming light of the Divine.” Andre Breton, in his 1st Manifesto of Surrealism in 1924, wrote that painting is automatic writing, the transmission of the artist’s unconscious reactions to the canvas (which, by the way, was most closely matched by Jackson Pollock, and not by those who are usually considered the luminaries of Surrealism, and who simply depicted their fantasies - images - on canvas). I also like the statement of Joan Miró, who said: “When I paint, the picture arises spontaneously under my brush.” Therefore, for me, the main stimulus for inspiration in my work is painting itself. The visual means of painting - paint, brushes, the plane of the canvas, or other materials - can sound and reveal themselves in an infinite number of forms and color combinations. But at the heart of this lies the invisible metaphysical action of the Spirit. This is the real creative Freedom. My creative method developed after a period of trial and error in creating canvases. Today, it can be described as three stages of painting. 1.