Q&A
Please tell us more about your background. How would you describe yourself and your art?
I am a Danish abstract artist based in Copenhagen and started my career as a profession artist in 2010. I studied Philology at the Moscow State University and later continued my studies at the University of Copenhagen. From 1977 to 2010 I worked with teaching languages, journalistic and IT prior to moving focus to creating art.
In 2014 the I held my first exhibition in Copenhagen and since in New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Saint Petersburg, Barcelona and London. Today, my works are held in the private collections across world - in USA, Canada, Spain, Sweden and Denmark among others.
I think of myself as a translator of culture and ideas but with enough ambiguity in my expression to leave room for interpretation. For me personally, I appreciate that whatever meaning you derive from art is ultimately a projection of your inner self, your dreams, desires and fears. Delacroix said that a good piece of art can say more than any text, and I think that's very true. Kandinsky compared art to language with a deep interconnection between the heart, mind and soul. I chose painting over writing as my form of expression, because art captures more nuances and emotions than words can. I am also impatient and crave fast results, and painting is the only medium where my ideas find their expression at the same speed as they appear in my mind.
Where do you find inspiration for your art?
My works are most often based on things I read, culture, literature, current and past history, and my canvases are large because I need space for every nuance of what I'm trying to convey.
Does your work comment on current social, world or political issues?
With constant motion and impression intensity, we experience overwhelm in the search for a tangible means of self-expression. Complexity and lack of clarity leads to an experience of separation, loneliness, and a yearning to connect to something, someone, while at the same time to separate and be distinguishable. Differentiated. We are held captive by a state of unrest, but in the end, beauty will save the world. This is the true artist’s role in the society.
First and foremost, I want to communicate depth, complexity and nuance. I can't control the meaning a person extracts from my art, and one painting can mean many things to different people. What I hope to convey consistently, though, is a specific and vast array of emotion. I've been rebelling against perfection since a very young age, and insisting on making colour-combinations my main form of expression over figurative images or geometric shapes. This frees the viewer from having to make an association to any object in the real world.
Instead of depicting things which I observe, my paintings reflect emotional moments I recall from the past, and also what I wish to see. My art depicts the world as I want to see it, not as it is. I think that is the ultimate value in art: that it offers us a richer and more beautiful reality than the one we live in. In the words of Philip Guston, ‘I mean there is a forgotten place of being and things, which I need to remember. I want to see this place. I paint what I want to see.’”
What career accomplishment are you most proud of and why?
I won many Prizes and Awards, but I think, that the show at MEAM - International Biennale in Barcelona, MEAM Museum (European Museum of Modern Art of Barcelona), Spain, November 2022 was on of those.
And I will also be happy to announce my Solo Exhibition at Himmerland Museum of Art in Denmark this autumn 2023 (starting on September 2 - October 15.
If I can be very bold and open about my aspirations, I would stay that my vision for the future involves delivering some great showings in respected and recognized museums.
What is your current most important career goal? What steps are you taking to attain it?
I want to prioritize time and attention for making some truly innovative and communicative pieces of art in the next five years. I also hope to be able to expand even further on the audience that my art appeals to.
In terms of the content and concepts I’m looking at, I am exploring the notion of the ‘unfinished’ in the visual arts. There are works left incomplete and works using a non finito—intentionally unfinished— aesthetic that embraces the unresolved. Artists like Cézanne, and modern artists Jackson Pollock and Robert Rauschenberg, have taken the unfinished in entirely new directions, blurring the distinction between making and un-making, extending the boundaries of art, and inviting the viewers to make own interpretations. I would like to find my voice in this movement as well.
Finally, I am inspired by the looser norms of what constitutes 'good' art. The art world has become more inclusive, which leaves room for a much wider variety. I don’t necessarily agree with or like everything out there, but I appreciate that there is room for it. This gives me the courage to deliver an unpolished, authentic expression of my inner self to an audience when I feel it’s ready.
Online Exhibition 'Beyond Utopia: Visions of a Perfect World' 15.06 -15.09.2023