Colour Alchemy

Solo exhibition, Art-Kvadrat, Ufa, May 2021.

Why make art?
I found my answer: for myself and for space, to integrate myself.
What is space? It is something multidimensional, both visible and invisible. Space is the energy of everything that exists, and by perceiving it we can create new patterns, new combinations, new laws, open new perspectives and show one and the same thing from different sides.

Space is changing in our time. We are sinking deeper into the digital world, and our points of support are shifting too. I am sure that what matters for people now is developing attention, sensing the world more subtly, understanding oneself, one’s feelings, thoughts and emotions. Abstract art is a chance to be in dialogue, to connect the rational and the irrational.

The process.
I did not want to create forms or draw specific objects. I felt there were already plenty of objects singled out from space, and that over the past ten years attention had been moving towards specialisation, the concrete and the precise.
I wanted to create space, or something that unites everything and is new at the same time, a kind of movement.

Colour has always caught my attention. The colour of the sky, of a dress, of a fruit, of eyes, the colours of the rainbow, the play of light, fireworks, effects of colour and light.
And space has always interested me as a chance for new feelings, new states, new ways of acting and new interactions to be born: how things are arranged here and what the atmosphere is like. I am always attentive to spaces, noticing why I feel good, calm and at ease in one place and sad in another, why I want to leave one place and want to dance and smile in another.

I know that a space, a natural territory, can be special in itself. There are so-called places of power, and perhaps this has to do with magnetic fields or with minerals under the ground. Lake Como in Italy, for example, is a special place for people, because ginkgo biloba trees grow there and the stones on the shore act favourably on the human body with no special attunement, and people feel well there.
The next level is places where ancient cities stood, such as Istanbul, where many people once lived, apparently strong in spirit or energy. I feel this space as special too: in that city I immediately felt at home. The space of the city seems to embrace everyone; we are different, but there is a place for each of us and a sense of occasion and of peace.

My history of visual art.
As a child I deliberately drew girls, women and the clothes they wore.
Later I took photographs, just for myself, and my friends and family liked them. I did photo shoots of them, made collages from photographs, and photographed everything that interested me on my travels.
I felt an intense urge to draw again when I found myself in Bali. The place inspired me with its richness of scents, sun, flowers and harmony. Peaceful people living in a natural rhythm. The ocean, fresh juicy food, swimming every day, a feeling of lightness and fullness at once.