INTRODUCTION
I
have been doing etching, lithography and painting since my earliest
childhood. These disciplines complement each other, since the
graphic arts bring rigour to one’s work and painting a sense of
freedom.
I come from a country in the former USSR where classical techniques
are still taught in schools and I grew up in a family of artists. I
studied in circles where I was kept informed about the social and
cultural changes in the world. I have a very pronounced taste for
films, rock music and literature. I am naturally part of this
post-modern age we live in where popular art, drawing nourishment
from high art, has become exceedingly sophisticated.
For
each new painting, my point of departure is a series of questions
that were left unresolved when I completed the previous one. This
first state is one of confusion, a strange impression of having
lost the thread. Several pages covered in sketches that contain no
real leads and are generally of no use. Then finally the right
rough sketch, the right idea emerges and the thread is restored.
Then comes the work on the canvas, followed by a sort of frenzy.
Tones, technique and information intermingle. Eagerness gives way
to reason, to restraint, to a long series of coming and goings
between doing and looking, until a balance is reached. Once all the
elements are in place, an accent, a distinctive characteristic
still needs to be found, a surprise that will render the work
unique and complete.
My characters exist less for their human properties than for their
sculptural quality. The attitudes they adopt in my works are at the
service of the composition and the rhythm. The foreground of
sculptures in action creates a break in the accumulation of
information. Constructing a completely realistic or fantastic scene
is of less importance to me than revealing a subtle arrangement of
the zones and the planes.
I take the mechanisms of reality as my inspiration and, although I
do not reproduce all their workings, they form the basis of my
imaginary world. At first sight, what strikes the eye is a series
of objects set in a subtle fantasy scene, but if one looks more
closely at the work, for example by isolating one particular detail
from the rest of the painting, one’s eye will be guided from these
familiar objects through a variety of plastic experiences.
The small story the painting tells, the viewer’s identification
with it, the role-play, all of these fade into variations on the
theme, a sweet obsession of mine. This theme unfolds throughout the
exhibition like a collection of scenes in which fragmented harmony,
controlled disorder and childhood memories blend and blur into each
other to create a multitude of references and
interpretations.
Interview by Bérangère Maximin
3rd October 2007
Photographer
: Stefan Hoareau - All Rights Reserved