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    Summer paintings

    About July 2015

    Winter in Australia is summer in Russia. Summer associated with adventures, novelty and unexpected turns. We tend to be more open to experimentation, and the flow of events is uninterrupted by weather conditions. Living in a country where summer and winter swapped places did not stop me from perceiving July as a summer month. It is a summer month for me, because most of my life July was filled with joyful moments, long days and short nights. Perception is everything and habits rule who we are and who we want to become. The river of life, taking us from a place to place, doesn’t automatically change who we are. In order to change, we must develop habits that become part of our body and soul. If I want to perceive July as summer, I need to change my consciousness. With things like adapting to new weather conditions, it is not so important to change a mindset, but adapting to a new social order requires a serious consideration. Yet the river of life keeps going and setting its own priorities.

  • Gallery

    Sonas

    Sonas | Oil pastel on canvas board 140 x 100 cm 2018

    What is happiness? It’s a momentary feeling that one can capture in a state between a feeling of responsibility, pressure, commitment and the sudden satisfaction of completed work. This painting is a symbol of thousands of such ephemeral feelings that were awaited and directed into the canvas. The only goal of this art work was to be filled with such happy moments with no room for doubt, dissatisfaction or being lost. Happiness is indeed quite simple when it happens, but to make it happen it is really hard, because I think happiness comes when all levels of human physical and psychological states synchronize in a beautiful dance.

    The title of this art work is ‘sonas’, a Scottish Gaelic word for ‘happiness’. Why Scottish? For many reasons! Perhaps, I was influenced by the TV shows, ‘Outlander’ and ‘Reign’, both based on the history of Scotland, perhaps, because ‘sonas’ looks and is pronounced so much like ‘songs’ and I definitely associate happiness with music, dance and childlike pleasures, naivety, spontaneity, and absolute, unconditional certainty that the world is a good place.