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Here, where I am..
                        My story
 
 * * * * *
     I was born in Novosibirsk and
grew up in  a Russian speaking  family.
I am reticent about my childhood, since mercifully it was slightly different from others - careless, amazing and full of surprising things - childhood of kids surrounded by lovely and attentive parents.....
My school years were rather unpleasant, 
I definitely was taken for a delinquent thank to my intolerable rebellious nature willing to reform everything in the world around me..
That time I was persistently treated with fine arts since my parents distinctly saw an artistic talent in me and were very strong in their intention to develop it to unbelievable artist's height.. as reward for my promise to be diligent in art school attendance they bought me a little puppy - my adorable sheepdog Black that overtook  all my expectation about dog's mind and his ability to play with ..a stones, caused  afterwards his getting new name - ' Buddah '..
        After that  my perspective of the world had been  for the first time, seeing an entirely  new
and fascinating dimension. His little stone game caused me  to think differently about the meaning of many things most importantly he  taught me to contemplate simple things. 
My  life changed color after his departure from this earth, - 
- it's got very dark, since he's gone - 'what gets black, when you take black off it?' - I used to ask myself ridiculously - 'my damn life' was my usual answer .....it was my first great frustration in my life when he left me.. it was new year's eve, there was plenty of dead drunk bustards staggering along the streets, simplifying their enjoyment of life by drinking vodka ... 
that evening it  was snowing and windy.. In the darkness, i was behind reality  running up crowded streets, not daring to comprehend  that I would  never see Black again  ..suddenly empty and void ..  my  throat nearly burst  from crying his name .. despair - my multi-colored  crushed  world....without  nights full of flights ..sun not knowing  sunset...broken china was all that remained
on the floor after the carnival...

Then 1 year study at the Physics Department.. then 5 at the Math Department of Saint-Petersburg University - numerous days with hard brain sheiks and infinite cigarette packets nervy smoked  up while in the queue for exam. .. somewhere within  -  couple of years accomplanng with private lessons of painting and composition given by the kindest woman, 
Elena Dmitrievna (from chair of Painting of 'Muhinskoe Utchilitshe') helped to diversify   my academic life ..an life itself which until then never seemed to stop ever since I could remember :
 .. graduated diploma,   two years of work in prestigious investment company, Ph.D. study in Statistics, moving to Madrid.. - it's been running and it's still the same, even  without any  reasonable explanation for it..... 
Now I live in Madrid, where i produce  my oddly surprising pictures  while a student at the  Department of Economics at  the Carlos III de Madrid..  

I think my new life experience here has  been  resulting in hybrids  of the mishmash  of cultures and designs found during my travels abroad, in Spain and France in the last two years.. 
For the  first months spent in Spain,  my paintings were  rather influenced by my inability to overcome  emotions, get through  feeling of complete isolation due to a barrier of
language (I could not speak Spanish at all!)..  and then - the meaningless study of Economics 
and Business, caused me to doubt the whole meaning of life  once again....
that time it has turned into something which strongly differs from known me before....

.. I began to  feel  a strange attractive importance to every tiny detail  in the environment,
like if  each of them contains some deep obscure meaning. .. there is something  appeared
that brings me the  joy  of  fussing with  paintings.. that makes me calm and unconcerned about any  kind of rush in the life ..   
any little thing  plays  its own main role in the Universe and only existence of opposites allows to understand meaning of both sides by comparison... 
the two colors - white and black, going  altogether ; 
two options - the war and peace; 
two states - death and life; 
two opposite side of everything.....are they necessary additive to each other? 
-  contrasts and brightness of everyday-life things are ..ancient  city- Venice, ..Erich Maria Remark,... Tarkovskii...
One more hyperbole - 'dead can dance'  -   my most favorite band that  fascinated  me once  by its name,  further became a really good deal  for me, feeding my hungry imagination and curing my despair with mysterious panacea... 
a bit later,  movie 'Dead Man' - that is .. what I am now -  'le camera-stylo' is my brush, 
shoot is my look... 

                                                                                                     .// 2000