The Bather Painting

I was born in winter in a small miner's town in Tula region. Mother, a teacher of Russian and Literature, would tell my brother and me about writers and poets, and read out a lot of fairy tales and classics. Father would sing romances accompanying himself on guitar or piano. Grandmother painted oriental beauties and fruit patterns, which I colored with pleasure. Brother copied pictures from magazines - of bloodthirsty pirates or Sioux and Hurons wearing war bonnets paddling in canoes, down on the warpath carrying bows, spears and tomahawks... I enjoyed watching him work standing behind his chair. Then we moved to Moscow and I became an Artist. Pertaining to my painting, FORM acquires two meanings: The first one relates to the common realistic concept, that is, a man is perceived as a man, a chair -- as a chair. The second is an abstract one, which presupposes a constant change of correlation between colour and form of objects at a certain angle of view as well as illumination. That's where the transformation occurs: man appears to be not quite the entity it used to be but a combination of colourful geometrical figures; be it a still life or landscape, they are no longer just a number of objects but SPACE, subject to interminable change and transformation due to the light and shade effect. The combination of realistic and abstract approach can potentially expand or shrink a given space altering our viewpoint about it. It is not that the non-figurative is implied here, it's fair to say that it's more likely about an extension of the meaning of FORM, a balance between its realistic and abstract essence. Achieving this balance enables me to explore new dimensions and perspectives of FORM.