Original artwork description:

AERO - air is vital for man. During a pandemic, this topic has acquired particular relevance both literally and figuratively. External circumstances cut off our oxygen, making long-term planning next to impossible, making questionable our ability to travel freely and be socially active. Universal digitalization has highlighted the problems of alienation.

A series of large format dynamic works performed in a mixed technique, so dear to me. Author’s canvas primer, pasty oil painting with the use of dry pastel, and natural charcoal as well as the inclusion of an old rumpled map and bits of organizer make this collection especially tactile and personal. The works in this series are inspired by wanderlust, they are shrouded in a veil of audacious romance with a note of a healthy adventurism.

It is not all that simple though, as the essence of this collection is dynamics, determination, adamant striving for an intended goal. It is a discovery of new horizons, anticipation and joy of victory, heady novelty, a pioneer’s passion. Canvases are literally laced with rebellious spirit of freedom.

Enhancing perspective and interplay of contrasts set the dynamics of these canvases, make them mobile and even jet-speed mobile at times. This is a tribute to a modern rhythm of life. Sometimes these works tell a story of inability to break away from the routine of everyday life, of a desire of self-fulfillment against all odds, despite conventionalism and superstitions.

The pictures in this series are all about individual freedom of a personality, which, in the light of modern events appeared to be threatened. A human being is part of the system. Does any single person stand a chance to be able not to play by imposed rules or at least to declare his or her right to influence this system?

Restriction of physical freedom of movement in pandemic conditions also affected the subject and mood of some works. The picture ‘Aero’ II New Edition (LATVIA. In Northern Europe by the Baltic Sea) perhaps, is the most peculiar in this context. Each person will see something different in this work. It can be sentimental homesickness and impossibility to return home or nostalgia about the past irrevocably gone. Or it can be willingness to act against all odds and to search for new perspectives, just like a painter who does it on the surface of a canvas, reinforcing, inverting or breaking linear perspective, strengthening contrasts, dividing the sky into geometric segments. Then, in defiance of physical laws of the objective World the impossible becomes possible, opening to an inquisitive mind new horizons and the edges of its infinite as it turned out possibilities.

Materials used:

oil paints

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