Artist’s
Statement
It
was in the year of the war, 1940. In the Soviet Union, friendship with Germans
was at its peak. Moldavia, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were forced to join
Stalin. We got factories on their territories producing milk and butter. That’s
when I was born.
Only
a year later, our “friend” became our enemy.
That
was the beginning of the Great War, as it was called later. Truly Great – in
the number of people’s lives it took, lives of Soviet people. But I managed to
survive and even exhibit my first creative skills, at the age of three – my
fist drawing of a stuffed eagle.
Since
then, I went on creating… I learned about Stalin’s death in the town of Soviet
Gavan, traveling vast distances of the far east with my family. Please note: I
was born in the very heart of Moscow, Taganka Prison. It was on Taganka Square,
where Vysotsky (famous Russian poet, bard, singer and actor) asked: “To be or
not to be…”
After
the death of The Leader, I left for Moscow to become an artist. The order to
put my father under arrest was dismissed.
My
teachers, on one hand – declared that I had a talent; on the other hand – that
I was too curious. Curiosity was not encouraged. There were numerous attempts
to expel me, but somehow, I stayed.
I
remember, in 1959, a gypsy woman approached to foretell my future: I will live
“on the other side.” I forgot her words, but now, in America, they acquired a
new meaning. I started painting angels after surviving an earthquake in
Tashkent. I was saved by my angel when he carried me away from my bed to escape
being crushed by a falling ceiling.
But…at
the end, the important thing is: I do not paint my sorrows, my phobias or other
crud. I am painting the importance of “Being.” Anything else you want to know
about me – it’s all in my paintings.
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