THE ARTIST'S STATEMENT FOR THE SERIES

"THE CONE OF SURPRISE AND OTHER FIGURES"

Surprising title, the figures, strange for the first sight and seeming un-based - cube, ball, cone. What is it - a metaphysic still life? Or an opportunity of meditation for a viewer?

I felt the first impulse for this set in Constantinopole-Istanbul when I was looking at the half-ruined mosaics in Hagia Sofia (when american restoration expedition started to work there the world finally saw what haв been covered by the Turkish whitewash for 400 years). My eyes wandered over the rough walls, mosaic made of precious smalta pieces - purpur, olive, golden...

I was interested in the plastic system inherited from the Byzantium - ex-tensionality of objects with still plane picture, using golden background, combining solemnity with ornamentality. This tradition attracted me not with its religious subject, but with the beauty of forms, plasticity and expressivity.

Moreover, comparing different figures - ball, sphere, cone spike - led me to the area of unconcious libido based sense of form. Is it possible that a form - ball-like, hard or spiral for example - can express different emotions and features, can be considered as "female" opposed to "male". From the regular facets of cone which are interpreted by psychologists as an unconcious expression of the world stability and the interaction between life and space, to the cones of spiral forms - now quite erotic figures - such an understanding of form is adequate to the present time and certainly is extremely far from the ancient mosaics.

And what’s the most important: almost all the objects on these paintings are real - cube, ball, cone - excluding "The Cone of Surprise". That one is unique, thought up authered figure. It is the major component in still lifes of this series, it arises over the Colosseum and appears in other paintings of "Cities". If you occasionally see a still life from this set in Germany, South America or Canada, you will surely recognize it and attribute it as "The Cone of Surprise and Other Figures".