STILL LIFE WITH SICKLE, WINE AND CLAY MUG

Concept

Back at school, after getting acquainted with the paintings of the masters of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, I realized that I wanted to paint like this. I was fascinated by everything - technique, colors, subjects, complex detailing. I learned this by collecting information bit by bit and applying it to copying the paintings of my favorite artists. Most of all I was inspired by Caravaggio - his desire for the realism of nature, deep contrasts, attention to the smallest details, his personality. Sometimes, when copying his canvases to natural size, I involuntarily thought that I was writing it by hand. At such moments, I realized that I was moving in the right direction, and it didn't take long to find my own style.I have always loved to paint portraits, but at some point there were so many of them that I realized that enough was enough. I'm tired of getting to know people and their souls, because any portrait painted by the artist's hand is a self-portrait of the artist himself. But how can an artist paint his own portrait, paint the truth, not accidentally wishful thinking?At the moment of such reflections, an understanding came: we are what surrounds us, we are what we like. This is the only way we can be honest with ourselves and the audience. Obeying this fidelity to the truth, I began to write objects, telling stories with their help. For me, painting still lifes is first of all a means of translating an idea, and only then, as a result, the image of a beautiful object. It is a secret language, a secret cipher, a combination of a code.My paintings are a call to stop, to enjoy the material beauty of things that we practically do not pay attention to in our everyday hustle and bustle, to find in them the keys-symbols to the source of various ideas. The silence of symbolism speaks louder than a thousand words. You just need to take a closer look ...I work in the technique of the old masters, multi-layer painting with glazes, adapted to modern art materials, but with the preservation of the fundamental laws of technology that make great art lasting. I prefer small and medium formats as it takes a long time to create one painting due to the abundance of detail and the meticulous work on each layer.