Orchid Garden

Orchid is the flower of joy. According to a legend of a New Zealand Maori tribe, it was born out of the first rainbow on Earth, a gigantic colorful bridge which crumbled under the weight of descended immortal ghosts. The shape of a flower resembles an exquisite butterfly. Placer of flowers, just as a flock of moths, sitting on a twig, reminds us of a fleetingness of life and unearthly beauty of nature. The patterns and color combinations of this amazing exotic plant are marvelous. They create a rich scale of emotions: delight, tenderness, curiosity, anxiety… Orchid can be very different: predatory as a tiger, snow-white and light, velvety, enigmatic at times, of a deep violet, crimson, and even purple color, sunny yellow, childishly pink, pure, innocent or brightly flamboyant... Luxury, perfection, magnificence, defiant eroticism, perfect beauty, intimacy sometimes. These are but a few epithets due to the enigmatic and many-faced plant. In my paintings, orchids shape into bizarre compositions of fairy tale gardens – where the golden disk of the sun can be found next to the silver one of the moon, where the mood in one picture can change from early morning freshness to languid bliss of a deep evening, where moon energy succeeds the one of the sun and an enormous ball of the celestial luminary falls apart into a multitude of sunny bunnies creating a joyous mood in the picture. This collection is a hymn to life, beauty, femininity, the latter being impossible without masculinity. The canvases are saturated with sensuality in various guises, sometimes it is a passion bordering on aggression, sometimes tenderness and awe. These gardens never bore a viewer as they are dynamic and stay in a constant process of transfiguration. Large forms are in contrast with small ones, the latter at times become exquisitely fine. Multilayered compositions, a play with formats and perspective, and transparent glaze always make the viewer discover again and again new details, color combinations, and unexpected silhouettes depending on the light source and viewer’s position. Actually, the painting becomes a living organism in a personal space of the one who looks at it.