Introduction

I am an artist with a Russian background that nowadays live and work professionally in the Netherlands. My roots take place in St.Petersburg which great architecture, culture and history influenced me once and forever. My work is personal and autobiographical. It is rooted in the rituals and private mythology of my family and its environment.

Today, in the time of technical progress, mass production and new artificial materials I search for inspiration in the foundation of Arts — old Russian Orthodox icons, Renaissance and folk cultures. I seek for new shapes and images within my themes using different materials, but the favorite is clay for its plasticity and ability to transform. In the process of creation I look for the metaphoric image to describe my idea. Conflict between earthen and divine, ideal and ordinary, sexuality and a lifecycle, a spiritual quest and a human fantasy are the most popular subjects for me.

Working at the edge of two great cultures (Russian and Dutch) gave an enormous impulse to me. A synthesis of those and my personal life experience influence my art ideas, and my work forms in a way of a puzzle. My life stories, colors, emotions like particles of the puzzle shape an image. My images are full of symbols (a Man and a Woman, parts of the human body, a Tree, animals). My favorite symbol is a human head — it is like a metaphor of the human being itself. The head forms the place containing ideas, emotions and moods of a person, it shows a character. Besides the seriousness of the subjects I like to put irony and humor in my works - they often have a whimsical or childish look.