roaming

I know several ways of approaching painting. One is emulating other artist’s style. You may start from the very beginning by imagining that you are that other artist, or you can start like one artist, but then notice that something in your painting reminds you of another and move in that direction eliminating everything, which is not consistent with the style you adhere to.

Another way is preconception, conception, or design. You come up with an intellectual idea, think through the ways of visually, or otherwise, adapting it, and let yourself go through certain length of trial an error.

Another way is surrendering to Muses.  It is sweet but painful, like addiction.

It is not unusual for an artist to mix approaches in their working process.

The portrait of Nicholas Coletta, though, is a pure case of the latter approach.

When we started our session and were communicating, I absentmindedly smeared paint on the Mylar surface, until I forgot what I was doing. Nick of cause was of assistance: he drew my attention inside his vast personality so forcefully that I got totally lost there. Dizziness is one of the indicators of that. To keep from falling, but still maintain mobility, I had to hold on a hinge. That hinge was Nick’s eye, the eye on the right of the picture with the dark white. The other eye I painted super-realistically almost sweet. This contrast, the vary inconsistency of it, was important for creating a mythical landscape. Between these two eyes there was a world where I was roaming, and now, you do too.    

theater of masks

Pillow Talk, 2016, acrylic, Mylar, 48x31

People in this painting can actually embrace it; why do I always doubt?

Doubt is a bitch. 

The purpose for this painting was a gift. Would they like it if I actually wrap it and bring it to their worm and welcoming house? Is there too much implied here: the facial expressions, the scale of the figures? It all must mean something... Would they like the meaning? 

It is interesting to think about our self-image in relationship to the surrounding world. The strangers in the street, for instance, are no more detailed to us than the cutout silhouettes, but we notice peculiarities when we get to interact with them. Let's say we start relationships. To let new people into our own world, we manage to weave their sometimes troubling features into some kind of coherent mythology to match it, but by the time they become a part of our life, their appearance stops being significant again. It turns into a sort of a mask, a sign symbol for their complex personalities, a color code for their emotion in relation to ours. 

But when it comes to our own precious selves we are very selective about our appearance. We carefully examine our pictures; we don't like all of them, only some. They are usually those that don't represent us in the way we are being experienced by the others, but are more of an ideal image. And interestingly enough, that that ideal image, again, is somewhat static, more of a mask than the real alive us. 

 Greeks were right: life is a theater of masks.

two with one apple

Two With One Apple, 2016, acrylic, Mylar, 31x48

The irony about this image is that it is based on two real people who would, probably, hate to know it. It is also true for most other protagonists of my paintings. 

This particular painting has a kind of significance that real people in their everyday life may lack, but it is too brutal for anybody to be willing to say, " I see myself in this painting." 

So let's hope that no one sees themselves here.  

Red Wine

Red Wine, 2016, acrylic, Mylar, 48x72

I remember my friends, who I don't get to see too often, at a party, cradling their wine glasses. I see them so seldom that sometimes I wonder if I have invented them altogether. Why someone, who is my friend doesn't want to get in touch with me, and why do I call a friend someone who doesn't want to see me? Maybe everything, all the life outside me, is my invention, and my paintings are the only real thing. On another hand, how can I tell that my paintings are real, if they never leave the Cave, my art studio? Things can be called real only if more that one person agrees that they are, so it is easy to see why neither my friends nor my paintings are real. Reality is shared, and what is not shared is called fantasy.   

the ignored one

Fruits of Knowledge, 2016, acrylic, Mylar, 48x72

 This is how it started: I had a dream, spatial and complicated. I borrowed layers of blankets on the bed from that dream. The rest is my awaken fantasy. It meant something, but I didn't know what. One suggestion: In the old story, Adam and Eve ate an apple and went hiding because they noticed that they were naked. A man and a woman who are eating apples in this painting appear to be oblivious to nudity.

Perhaps, it has nothing to do with this painting, but I feel naked and ignored in the world of corporate art. It maddens me. No horns on my head or cunts between my open thighs can change this situation. The one who is ignored, stays ignored.    

self-portrait as a young woman

self-portrait as a young woman 2016, acrylic, Mylar, 24x36

In Moscow in the late 70's there were no styling products; heir grew organically. So did I. Cloths in the woman's sections were made of woven cotton and wool. This fabric wasn't flexible and the cuts were tailored to fit the woman's body. My body was a poor fit for the cut. Wide-shouldered and flat-breasted, I was doomed to wear boy's shirts, sweaters and pants. They, too, were ugly, but I was used to wearing them from my childhood as the hand me downs from my older brother. Along with the cloths, my brother provided me with friends; girls didn't want to play with those who were dressed like boys. When my brother and his friends turned thirteen their interests changed, and I found myself alone. The world was small; the only new friends I found were a woman 48 years older than me  with an unusual for our neighborhood fate, and a dog. This company taught me many thing but not to fit in.

I am a painter, an artist, a loner, but I am growing my hair. I don't know yet how long I will go. The goal is to fit in. Not as a woman, who wears close-fitted spandex cloths, but as an artist, who cannot find a venue to make her art known.       

babuska

The word for grandmother in Russian is BABUSHKA with the emphasis on the on the first A. My BABUSHKA was not  soft-spoken or kind-mannered. She worked her whole life and earned a lot of wealth for her family, anything that was imaginable in the communist economy of the totalitarian state. Thanks to her we lived in the capital city in two private apartments and had a summer house two hour away from Moscow.

self-portrait as a teen

As I wrote before, the gender identity issue was not totally alien to me. As a teen I looked exactly like a boy, and it was not difficult to me to act like one. It afforded me some precious freedom, because I could go  anywhere I wanted alone without a fear of being raped, but at the same time it caused me some true sadness, because I actually was always alone.  

the employee of the month

My grandma. As a young woman, almost a girl, she came to Moscow and got hired at the Stalin's Automobile Factory.
Not true.
She had already been married to a man she despised. In the village, where they were coming from there was not much choice...
In my fantasy, she had actually slept with a Jewish HR for the favor of being hired.
The fantasy was based on the fact that everybody, even Jews, had always mistaken my mother for a Jew...
But fantasies aside, my grandmother was one of the strongest women I have ever encountered.
And she was not nice.
I learned later, by my own experience at survival in the first few years of immigration, that my grandma was someone of whom I was proud to be a descender. 
   

self-portrait as a trinity

 

self-portrait as a trinity, 2016 acrylic, Mylar, 48x72

  A dreamer, a thinker and a feeler, look how their hands are interlocked! The dreamer is cutting the feeler's throat, because the feeler has a flesh, I guess; the thinker rubs her forehead with the feeler's hand, and raises another as if in a prayer for a dreamer... You may also say, the mind-body-spirit. All my energy goes into image. Words are scarce in me.

self-portrait as an artist

self-portrait as an artist, 2016, 48x72, acrylic, Mylar

It didn't take long to paint. Four hours at most. I painted it in one breath, as they say. Is there such expression in English? If not, I am borrowing it from Russian. 

I feel angry sometimes... Recently at a party a host was talking about a teenager in her family who was "transitioning to a boy." There was a pause after these news. Everyone involved in the conversation were taking it in. As for me, I was swallowing my anger. Not at the teenager, of cause, but at the gender situation in general. "...and I am transitioning to a woman," I thought. 

Funny. 

I am a female born, female raised and female living human wife and a mother of three, but an artist in me spoils the picture. 

And this is exactly what this painting represents.

And this is a reverse of this painting. Mylar is a translucent material,so this is what shows on the revers. I may like it even better

    

A Ride

Staring at people when they cannot see me is my second favorite thing. It makes me a voyeur, I guess. Anyway, this painting is based on an iPhone shot in the rear-view mirror that I took while waiting on a red light.  Words don't mean as much as images, at least sometimes…