How did you come to minimalism in your work?
Let me start by saying minimalism attracts me specifically in visual art, not in interior design. In interiors, I think it's beautiful too, but completely unsuited for actual living — I, on the contrary, like to fill my spaces with all sorts of things. But in visual art, I see that a person arrives at impeccability, at super-precision, through accumulated experience, and all of that is built on a high level of professionalism, which is to say, mastery.
It's like in Japanese martial arts, in films about sword masters: with one stroke of the brush you reflect the energy that exists in you at that moment, and you encode information into that stroke. But there are as many languages as there are people. The Tower of Babel, a mass of cultures and nations on the planet. Everyone speaks in their own character and their own language, and I'm not saying minimalism is the one true language in art. It's just that, by temperament, it's very close to me.
The art of calligraphy, the art of precision, the art of meaning — on one hand it carries a kind of code, not even a message but a cipher. I like it when an interior has a lot of these brushstrokes; I myself love collecting artists who create visual effects exactly this way — in painting, in graphic art. For me it's full of meaning, but beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, and since there are so many nations and languages, I don't think everything has to come down to minimalism. But for me, impeccability, precision, mastery, professionalism — these are synonyms for minimalism. It's a path to style: I try to make few touches, but precise ones. That's why I have a lot of rejects — in everything, in photography, in ceramics, in metal. It's just that some things speak to me, and others don't.
What does minimalism with character mean?
Minimalism, in my view, can't exist without character, because it's the quintessence of mastery. When you walk your own path, you develop your own recognizable face. And since I love precision, that precision has its own face and its own character.
Why specifically black, white, gold, red?
Well, can you explain why you like brunettes? Can that guy over there explain why he likes blondes? That's how I see it — I'm an artist, I resonate. I like it when two-dimensional art has black, white, red, gold. And my fifth favorite color is the color of powder, the color of skin.
I often use it as a base, working as if on skin, on the body — not like elephant hide, but literally drawing on the body, on its essence, because for me, as above, so below. Of course there are all sorts of cases and mixtures, but I want to believe that the soul is reflected in the body, and the body in the soul.
How do you avoid boredom in minimalist art?
Here I want to return to the conversation about different nations and different languages. Say I'm in China right now, everyone around speaks Chinese, I understand nothing. I suppose the language of minimalist art isn't for everyone either — it's for people who resonate with it specifically.
I create very different kinds of art, not only minimalist, but I'm increasingly drawn to it, because I genuinely love it — art where the precision of the touch matters. For the past two years I've gone on creative residencies to the Dmitry Kordovsky House of Sculptors in Pereslavl-Zalessky, Russia. A live model stands there, and I sculpt directly from clay, without molds — a unique piece requiring many hours of work. It's an absolutely realistic sculpture, which I later fire and paint with my own minimalist touches.
But my main answer to this question is this: the Chinese speak Chinese, the English speak English, Filipinos speak Filipino, Russians speak Russian, Hungarians speak Hungarian. It's not about boredom, it's that the language of art is for those who speak it. And the secret of expressiveness, for me, is the union of the inner and the outer. When you draw, it's essentially your soul doing the drawing, and that code, that charge of energy you release through the material, frees the process from boredom — both for you and for the viewer, who receives something they often can't explain themselves. And if the art is empty, without inner inspiration and tension — well, sorry, that happens too. There are diamonds, but there's a lot of glass. Nothing to be done about it.
Does English minimalism influence your style?
Moving to the West really did strongly influence my art — it became less labor-intensive. But take the example of those residencies at Kordovsky's creative retreat in Pereslavl-Zalessky: a real woman or man stands there, and I copy them. Minimalism or not — that comes in once I'm painting the finished figure, or, for instance, several times I made completely realistic large sculptures and then simply destroyed them. And it was precisely in the process of destruction, of overcoming the form and the material, that something of my own was born — it was still the same figure, in a way, but also something else. Purely my own sensations.
My experience living in the West also helped me arrive at this boldness to be myself. There are a lot of brilliant realist artists there, although now, all over the world, there's an increasing tendency to just print outlines and color them in. It's similar to how sculpture is shifting from hand-molding forms to scanning: three-dimensional objects get scanned and then printed in any material on a printer. It contains the same labor as a mold-maker's work, just through new technologies.
And it's the same here: a lot has changed, but when I'm among colleagues, in Russia for example, I'm just as comfortable making realistic art — and only afterward do I let loose with the painting. I believe experience enriches you. I don't even know how it happens, but travel and the contemplation of other worlds definitely enrich you. Essentially, other nations are like other dimensions: on one hand we're all human, but on the other there's an enormous cultural and psychological difference. And by observing that difference, you somehow inexplicably evolve.
How do you decide what to remove and what to keep?
I don't decide anything — maybe the difference here is that the question is asked by a man, and answered by a woman. It comes from the gut, from intuition. I have a particular gift — I'm an artist from start to finish, I simply know what's right. It's not deliberation. I don't decide anything — I know I need this, this, and that. That's it, bingo.
As modern research shows, the male and female path differ, but in the end they produce the same result. I don't know how men come to understand things, but even in your question — how do you decide? — my answer is: I don't decide, I simply feel that it needs to be done this way, and I know that if I do it differently, it will turn out badly. As the saying goes, a fish seeks deeper water, a person seeks a better life: I know what's better for me, and I choose it not because I decided something, but because I know. Although, of course, it doesn't always work out.
Are there works where you departed from minimalism?
Of course. I already mentioned the residencies in Pereslavl: everyone there sculpts realistic sculpture, and so do I. But we sculpt the live model together, and each finishes in their own studio. Although, honestly, over the past year I've started making non-realistic sculpture even during the residencies. I try to follow my own sense: I look and want, say, to make hyper-hairy legs, like an animal's.
As I get older, it's harder for people to condition me with what's around me. Yes, it still affects me, but less and less. I'm more interested in being myself, and maybe that's exactly the artist's path — focusing on your own wants. It's also a woman's path to a healthy way of life: if a woman doesn't act on her wants, that's a path to deep unwellness. Every cat knows which grass to eat to get better. These little wants are like a woman's pedals: I want it, I don't want it, I want it, I don't want it — and the funniest part is that by the end of the workday I get the same result as a man. The tools are just completely different, inexplicable from a logical standpoint.
Every work defines itself. If you're in partnership with the idea, the thought, the feeling, if you listen to how it wants to be realized — it gets realized beautifully, and you just follow its wants. One hand washes the other, and together you emerge with a beautiful piece. Essentially, I give spirit to an idea that comes to me or to another sincere artist — someone who listens to their heart, their soul, their inner cosmos. That's when it works.
How does minimalism work across different materials?
I want to return to where I started: that precision, that impeccability, is minimalism itself — even if some ideas call for other styles, I read it, for myself, as minimalism, since I'm precisely reflecting the wants of a particular idea, a particular state I'm experiencing at that moment. Perhaps that's exactly what minimalism is — precision in rendering what comes to you, what descends upon you.
You reveal the idea through your consciousness, your body, your hands, your imagination. And in this symbiosis of revelation through your physical existence, you get different brilliant works of art that bloom in different materials. It's precision of expression and self-expression. Perhaps it's not for nothing that icons weren't signed, even though we know the great icon-painters by name — because it's a fusion of you with the otherworldly, with the higher, with the other. It's not only you, it's a symbiosis, and you're a wonderful instrument.
And you have the right to change this idea, to cut it to shape: as it comes and gives you an impulse, so you recreate it through fusion with various physical materials. The idea stops being just ether and becomes material. In this I see the artist's great mission: he crystallizes the world of the unconscious, of the unknown cosmos, and materializes it in our everyday life. He is, in essence, a magician.