In the 2007 Equations series, each painting has components and values that point to a specific answer. Most images are common objects. Humans/animals interact with structures or vehicles. I have tried to uphold the strict guidelines for my work that I have created in my head:

1. white kills color;
2. balance outweighs urge;
3. didacticism prevents revelation;

4. don't let the feelings of losing distract you from the feelings of learning;
5. the power of influence can't be fought. don't try to block out Guernica, just let it sit there if that is what it wants;
6. less is more;
7. if you see fish, draw fish;
8. write what you know;
9. wash your brushes as if taking communion;
10. use only 3 colors.

I became interested in painting through friendships with 3 painters: Jeff Fischer, Wyatt Landis, and Mike Arvan. Fischer's technique would be to paint randomly on his surface, scrape/erase, throw on more paint, scrape/erase, repeat, repeat, until images came out. Landis would paint, draw, then cut and paste, creating collages that he would then work through with paint and gesso. Both used their materials to allow images to come to them through their process. This represents to me the most honest technique of obtaining and understanding one's image vocabulary. Once the images emerge, they are pulled out and balanced, sometimes resembling De Kooning.

This is in contrast with the surrealist paintings by Mike Arvan in which images are sketched out or thought out, then painted in a precise manner. Like Bosch/ Dali. The clarity, balance and power of these paintings initiate an immediate conversation with the viewer. The paintings are not searching for meaning, rather they convey it.

These painters have influenced me more than any paintings I have seen in museums/ galleries/ books because I had seen the contexts, daily lives, and how they translate their world into their work with differing techniques, but equally powerful results. My style is quite different from theirs, but I think that my paintings carry on the same exhilaration for life that drew me to art in the first place.

Equations begins with primary colors (yellow, red, blue) and recognizable images. As the paintings progress the colors change to different values, and some of the images become less recognizable. The meaning of a piece of art can be interpreted, and that interpretation can easily be much larger than the piece itself. The best example, if you will allow me to draw from literature, is Vladimir Nabokov's critique of Pushkin's poem Yevgeny Onegin. The critique is many times longer than the poem. And remember, this is only 1 person's critique. Images in a painting or stanzas in a poem lend to infinite interpretation. Though this should not open the door for people to simply throw together a bunch of images and expect people to attempt to interpret them into coherence. There do exist Poetry Machines which are computer programs that choose random verbs and nouns and put them together producing poems resembling a cross between William Carlos Williams and E.E. Cummings. One could interpret one of these poems for years. Such random juxtapositions and groupings of images do not clearly convey the exhilaration, the failures, the fears, the successes, and the humanity of an artist. I have titled this series Equations because each painting contains a group of images designed to point the mind in a very specific direction. Do not be surprised though if it takes you a couple days to define X.

I've spent the last 10 years living a good part of my time in countries in the former Soviet Union, predominantly Russia and Uzbekistan. I now live in Gig Harbor, Washington with my wife and 2 daughters. I am very happy.

Biography:

Education

Selected Exhibitions

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