This is an ongoing series of still lifes in which I pursue the use of a limited, palette. These static and subdued paintings are meditations intended to counterbalance the anxieties of the contemporary world.

Still Lifes

Plein Air 

I challenge myself with use of a visual language that is a combination of techniques and styles, with roots in the European Renaissance and classical antiquity.  Being a contemporary person and using archaic language allows me to connect with a continuum rather than with a particular moment in time. Studying techniques and styles of the past was just one part of the experience. Those human qualities -- Archetypes -- are the focus of my work, which I synthesize in visually clear, realistic, allegorical and symbolical formulas.

Archetypes

Nightly lights

Thoughts on the Book of Job etc.

Urban Legends

As a human race we tend to romanticise whatever we are going through -- especially dark pages in our history -- crusades, wars, even apocalypse. This has become one of the major themes in today’s movies and books. As we advance into our current, technological phase, we realize that this could lead us into catastrophe, armageddon. Technological progress tends to isolate itself from other support systems like morality, religion -- making itself a predominant and self-destructive force. In this era, humanity is no longer in control of its fate. People are ants, building a monstrous tower of Babel, doomed to collapse. But we are still human -- in the midst of cataclysm we still love and dream. Humans are hopeless romantics.

Andrei Rabodzeenko