How are you doing overall, what's your mood like?
I've been reflecting a lot on how we've ended up where we are now. My emotions swing between sadness, confusion, and disappointment. It's tough to accept that some people don't appreciate the greatest gift on this planet – life. But amidst all this, there are beautiful moments in life that are worth holding on to and living for.
What is your artistic journey about? What do you aim to convey through it?
I feel a profound need to bring something bright and good into this world. To try to use art to restore some balance between creation and destruction. Art cannot bring people back to life, unfortunately. But it can renew faith in life to those who are still alive. It seems that people now have enough heavy emotions and thoughts, so I don't see the point in amplifying the sorrow that surrounds us. My art is a safe space where the viewer can be alone with themselves.
A cliché question, but what inspires you?
Instead of a broad answer, I'll try to point out specific things that influence me. First of all, space and atmosphere have a significant impact on my art. It can be unusual light, an interesting color of the sky, a giant cloud over the sea, the texture of wood, the shadow of a tree's crown on the ground. Sometimes I take a camera and go for a walk to seek inspiration. I can get stuck for twenty minutes by some crooked gates in a field or a pipe that beautifully intersects with the sky. The horizon line has a magical effect on me. Many of my works are simply landscapes divided evenly by the horizon line. I love objects that have been recently abandoned by people and are somewhat neglected. In such places, I feel an immense peace and silence that I have only encountered in Buddhist temples in Thailand. It seems that in most of my recent works, I try to create a space where the viewer will be present in the moment.
Your works often feature bright colors and interesting shapes. What do color and shape mean to you?
To me, color is the foundation of visual language. It's the first thing I notice when I look around or at other works of art. I love Color Field Painting. It is fantastic what an almost sacred experience it can have on the viewer. A painting turns into a window through which the viewer can peek into another universe. Although it seems that they are looking at the painting, their gaze is actually directed inward. Shapes and objects in my works structure the space and create specific feeling, and very rarely are they part of the narrative. In my previous works, I often turned to symbolism. For instance, the series "Interconnected" contains many graphic elements that have hidden meanings, and each work tells a specific story. But now the objects are just objects. I just feel that I want to add exactly this shape to the space of the artwork. But if the viewer wants to assign some meaning or function to the object, they have every right to do so. After all, this space now belongs to them.
And finally: what's next, how do you see your future path?
I don't have an answer to this question. I just do what feels right, here and now.