ARTIST STATEMENT

I have been having lucid dreams since childhood stages.

Dreams in which I understand that I am dreaming and that what is happening around is just illusion.

The realization of everything around me is just a dream comes at the moment when, somewhere on the edge of perception, I begin to feel the slight weirdness of what is happening.  And suddenly — PUFF — I realize that I am inside of a dream.

Lucid dreaming lets me gain control over every little detailed structure of the dream reality and not just manage it, but create my own as well.

Unfortunately or not, the ability to be aware of oneself subconscious in a dream has one side effect. The feeling of unreality of what is happening begins to manifest itself in the real world — when I am awake. Sometimes it scares me, but at the same time it is incredibly inspiring.

The experience of dream control has greatly influenced my development as a creator, teaching me to perceive reality as a kind of illusion. It gave me the ability to look beyond the veil of the familiar world and feel the energetic structure of reality. In my work, I try to convey this experience. 

The trigger that allows me to enter altered states of consciousness is music. With its help, I can see hidden layers of reality.

For me, art is improvisation, dance, magical ritual.

My objects of research are mystical images from the subconscious, dreams and secret fears. I expose them to reality, creating art on the edge of real and surreal. I don’t like to set boundaries both in life and in art so I work in several fields: photography, painting and music, mixing them as a whole freely.

In my paintings I capture entities that I encounter “behind the veil”. I position myself as a shaman practicing through painting. I paint in a state of semi-trance, and this process is partly unpredictable — a kind of shamanic ritual, improvisation. 

When working on photographs, I experiment with wave effects, double exposure and all sorts of distortions. And when working on paintings, I experiment with free brushstroke and physical impact on the image (setting fire, tearing, etc.).

My favorite time of day for creativity is twilight and night. They give scope for imagination, allowing you to feel what you don’t notice during the day. At such times, the connection with the subtle world is felt more vividly.

Big cities have always seemed uncomfortable to me, I have been living in a wooden house near the forest for more than ten years. The proximity of nature helps not to be distracted by the bustle of society and to concentrate on creating your own worlds. Some may find them dark and scary, but I feel comfortable there, loving my wery own demons.