Яблоня (Yablonya), 2020, acrylic, oil, oil pastel, varnishes, gold leaf, chalk on canvas, 200 x 150 x 4.5 cm.
I needed to develop work for the living room. My task was to connect two canvases to match the requested size and it would be easy to transport. As I mentioned earlier, the best thing an artist can work for is a viewer. This work was intended for the Russian-German family. My ideas began to revolve around Russian culture and the place where Collector lives. In this small town is the Apple Tree Plantation. I often walk there with a dog.
It is probably interesting here to follow the process of creating work, from the point of environment influence, my interests and what is important to me.
Сarigiet Аlois, 1969 [Davos 2020]
I wanted to connect the canvases and at the same time not hide this gap in space. And then I remembered about the work of Сarigiet Аlois seen in January this year in Davos. Ease and professionalism amazed me. The plastic and structure of the tree lets the viewer into the painting and begins the story.
And I started the canvas with an underpainting. I wanted to unconsciously and lightly to portray such a narrative. I started entering the work through the roots of the tree. The trunk, depending on how widely placed the canvases will pass the space together with the environment in which we are now, thereby the tree will always remain relevant and alive.
Unfortunately, such a narrative turned out to be fragmented and increased narration did not complement the work.
And I started to search...
At the same time, I was working on another work - an inverted copy of Kuindzhi's painting. A tree contains as much poetics as in a person. The work of the Russian artist helped me to understand that such a simple plot, a birch grove with sunlight, without people and buildings, contains the pure melancholy of a Russian person. I needed to remove all unnecessary elements from my work.
Arkhip Kuindzhi Birch Grove. 1879 Oil on canvas. 97 × 181 cm. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow [Painting] At: https://www.wikiwand.com/ru/Берёзовая_роща_(картина_Куинджи) (Accessed 28.05.2020)
Background selection, foliage solutions, apples - everything turned out gradually as tests were taken. One of the sketches turned out to be successful with a white background, but it was necessary to make it more difficult and develop the theme with the tree further.
And... I put one of my works “under the tree” and then a trembling passed through my body. I have found a solution. That was luck and coincidence and my experience. Only technical issues remained, the solution of which is my favourite pastime. How to depict leaves so that they are not commonplace, and at the same time that they are something modern.
What are these balls? This is us. Or our consciousness. Or an apple. Or energy. This is the element in the work that gives rise to questions and encourages the viewer to think and move away from recognizable forms to a contextual examination of the work.
To translate this work into sculpture is how to plunge into the darkness of water with a lantern.
But the work is so complete that against it the installation looks small and inconsequential. It lacks the texture of the material, apples are alive and not from a fairy tale as in the painting, and the structure of two canvases in itself is an incredible finding for searching and determining the boundaries of space.
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