I paint in order to show the world my visions from our past or future lives, perhaps in other worlds and spaces, in another time or in between times.
Born: Azerbaijan
Now: Ukraine, Kyiv
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INTERVIEW
Andriy, your creative path began relatively recently. Please, tell us how you decided to start painting?
I really started my career as a professional artist relatively recently, four years ago, in 2019. I then turned 61 years old. Before that, I was an engineer, teacher, bank manager, then the head of my own financial institution in the city of Horlivka, in the East of Ukraine. It seems to me that I have always been an artist, in my every business, I came up with something new, unusual. In 2014, everything changed dramatically, including ourselves. My family moved to Kyiv. By 2019, my financial business finally collapsed and I felt that I wanted to express through my paintings what was important that had accumulated in me and what came into my thoughts, dreams and visions.
By the fall of 2022, you have accumulated more than 200 works. This is very productive! How do you create so much, and where is it all stored?
I was probably lucky to get my own workshop and the opportunity to buy materials for painting. I’m like a hungry animal, gorging itself on food, I can’t get enough of drawing. I never repeat myself, because I have no shortage of themes and plots. Probably a vivid life experience constantly generates new images.
I paint only in oils and am not attached to any technique or style, and as I once felt, I paint more with my heart than with my head.
You describe your style as intuitive painting. How do you discover ideas in yourself, which you then transfer to the canvas?
I immediately decided that I would paint what was in my head, in my soul, in my heart. Often, starting a new picture, I do not know what will be on it. I choose paints and randomly apply them to the canvas until I suddenly see some kind of image, landscape or phenomenon. Then I just correct what I see. As if the images themselves appear in my paintings.
What is your art about now? Did its direction change after relocation in 2014 and after the full-scale invasion?
Some of my paintings, I understand not immediately. Sometimes it seemed to me that these images were, as it were, about the past, but after the full-scale invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine, I saw that these images then were about the future. In general, after February 24, 2022, a lot has changed, both around us and within us. I started to draw a series of “Dualisms”, in which I tried to visualize the mental states of people experiencing war.
In April, you had a solo exhibition. What are the emotions and impressions after its completion, and what are your plans for the future?
From April 1 to April 15 I had two solo exhibitions at the same time.
The first in the museum of Maria Zankovetskaya, “Mysticism, Spring, Love”. There were presentations of my 22 paintings on this subject.
The second, in the museum-workshop of I.P. Kavaleridze, “Psychedelic images of war”, there are already 36 works, including my last series “Dualisms”.
Meeting with the audience is always an exciting and even magical moment. In general, I believe that a picture or its image, at first, seems to be sleeping, and begins to live only when it is reflected in the mind, soul or heart of the viewer.
I spent a lot of excursions and constantly felt how my images come to life and create their own worlds, perhaps in new universes or in other dimensions.
What would you advise young artists who work not only in Ukraine?
As an artist who started his career four years ago, it is difficult for me to give advice, to wish rather. And to wish, I want the artist to listen more to the inner voice and be true to himself. I That would not fall into the “conjuncture trap”. When a work is bought from an artist, he begins to draw a similar one and turns into an artisan.