Original artwork description:

Purple pomegranates are on a white canvas… A hammered dagger beside... The pomegranates are bleeding... The white canvas is reddening…
…Anna was watching Sayat and weaving lace without looking, by heart, the ring on her finger has caught a thread and the lace got loosened…Princess jerked her hand…
The thread broke…
…And Anna, looking into Sayat’s eyes, took off the ring.
And… Sayat took off the ring!
(Sergei Parajanov. ‘Sayat-Nova’ (The Colour Of Pomegranate). From the book ‘Confession’.)
Each artist has his own iconic themes, a kind of a red thread spinning through all periods of his creative life. For me The Colour Of Pomegranates has become one of such absolute themes
The white thread of destiny.
The dagger sets the line of horizon symbolically as if melting on the metaphysical surface of a ritual table.
Pomegranate is a symbol of life…

The wind whistles… The petals of white rose are falling down.
… Wild rose emerges.
Silence…
And for many years white roses are crying while falling.
(Sergei Parajanov. ‘Sayat-Nova’ (The Colour Of Pomegranate). From the book ‘Confession’.)
I have never thought the process of wilting can be so beautiful.
In this picture inspired by genius of Parajanov polarity of metaphysics and textured corporeality of things-symbols reaches a barbaric poignancy.
A canvas is a white tablecloth with a history. Rough priming mixed with ash is like a metaphor of rebirth from the ashes, a symbol of eternal renewal and immortality.
A special author’s recipe allows painting on old table cloths and bed sheets. Such ‘canvas’ becomes exceptionally close to personality of creator and very honest.

This family tablecloth with a staffed pattern of roses after it had been written off had been covering my work desk in my workshop for more than ten years. Paint stains and oil smudges remember long years of creative search, disappointments and emotional uplifts…

Materials used:

oil, dry pastel chalk, natural charcoal, gold leaf, silver leaf

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