About Maxim Bondarenko

I create art as long as I remember myself and it was always a different cause for that. Currently I endeavor to paint as a spiritual work, as a service, as an offering to some higher power, vortex, Him/Her, or call it anything you wish. That thing is not necessarily outside of me. Doing anything else has less sense in my world. I feel myself just as an instrument for something bigger even though that voice sometimes can be very subtle.
In my works I depict alternative realities and explore mainly transcendent ideas. More than anything else it is close to Magic Realism. As well, the European tradition of Allegory always strongly influenced me. Thus I use reverse perspective, personified objects, flowers, fruits and other symbols of human life and personality. My art does not reflect the current moment. Subconsciously I always strive to stay timeless or off time. Even though my works are about “here and now” in communion with the Eternity. That’s why I keenly choose my technique of washing the paint off and showing work of time, destruction through aged textures, multiple layers like if they would be a cross section of a tree speaking about all its life, not about a particular moment.
I usually combine different art genres in one artwork. For instance I put still life in a landscape and add features of a portrait why it’s always difficult to classify. In my art I tend to objectify people and personify objects. All these methods are the shadows of the “real” reality. As in inveterate life we objectify or personify many things even if they have an ephemeral, virtual nature. We usually aren't even aware of that since it happens on the knee-jerk reaction level. I hope my works serve as a reminder on how beautifully complex is life and how complex are human sensations and sentiments.