Minotaur Hunting — 1 (2010)
"Hunting for the Minotaur". Triptych.
Tech: Oil on canvas
Size, cm:
240 х320

This is a search for a universal and at the same time sacral story, the quest for the secret force, for the living and dead water of mythology keeping the art bloodstream alive.

But the myth was killed  by ironic reflection long ago. Artistic reality lost the power supply and  its authenticity – not the credibility, but the higher authenticity that a mystery adds to life. The world with no secrets hidden is like a maze without Minotaur concealed – it’s just an inert matter, beautiful but dead architecture. It is a world without challenge,  without trial, without sacrifice. It is safe — and empty from the ontological point of view. The artist looks for risky adventures, creative duel with chaos but finds only the scenery of majestic ruins. Skeletons of cathedrals and coliseums, dead ribs of arches — that is all that remains of the temple of art.

The paradox is that the painter wanders in ersatz-reality created by himself. Trying to discover what he once killed. Secret plot, which he is hunting for, is absent for one simple reason: the author repeatedly played up all the sacred plots long ago – played up, won and conquered. Once in the void, “without a deity, without inspiration,” he falls short of something important, he is deeply sad, looking for a loss in earnest — and still wants to play, laugh and bluff. And he plays.

He collides material and virtual. Ruins of a Roman temple, fragments of an ancient civilization, where we still exist, where there has been no news for a long time, all the treasures have been dug up and found. Pictures are empty, the central character is missing, but we obey to the instinct of hunter and continue wandering around these ruins, trying to find our victim again and again, to find our purpose and most important – to bring back the space slipping away from us.