I am from the Generation “Sixties”, whose childhood was spent in the war, youth-in political “frosts” and “thaw” after Stalin. I was born in 1931. In Vologda. Raised father and street, but more books. The boy worked on redrawing of soldiers ‘ photos, Okop Giss, posters. The love for art has awakened the elder brother Vyacheslav, gifted in music, painting, Technics. I have endured his death in the front and I always remember his parting. I tried after school to enter the Moscow Institute of Cinematography, but there did not believe that the brought pictures-mine. I have been looking for myself for a long time, graduated from two institutes and two postgraduate studies-on history and art studies, worked as a historian, art critic, philosopher, until, at last, since 1976 has not turned to painting. She became my main choice of life. My fame criticism and art critic for some time prevented others to see in me the artist.
I love the color and energy of writing, the power of great form, so I am close to the Russian and French avant-garde of the early XX century and of course, our great icon painting. Starting with the full-scale letter, with landscapes and still lifes, I soon became jaded in kind and almost completely moved to the painting “speculative”, but with the effect of “presence” in this composed reality. It is good painting that it is possible to embody the problems of being visually, to feel space and time through the eye and hand, the choice of means of expression, all the tools of the artist. The plane of the canvas seems to defy me.
And I use all the means of “impact” on the canvas: from “ruffled” brush, knife to fingers and rags. Everything goes into motion, and there is little to win the Spectator. The most plastic, not distracted by the trivia of the plot. Such purity of plastics I find in still life, in my theatre of things. My tables are stages of objects related to kinship, friendship or conflict. My things came from an arsenal of art, old and new, I strive to give them a new modern iconic look, new “masks” of bouquets, vessels, utensils, cabinet sculpture. So built my reason “parades”, processions, the upcoming things, with the roles I set and the meaning of these dumb characters. The means of entering the space is a frequent connection I still life with the landscape or interior. The main thing for me is to find a psychological, and therefore, artistic transformation of the object, whether it is a “bouquet” of spoons or instruments, “gloomy” or “cheerful” teapot, “solid” or “harmless” vase, or a prim table.
In the name of composition self-esteem, I try to avoid twists or designs. By the way, much to me in this sense gave directing development and memoirs of directors in a theatre. And while the canvas is in the workshop, it is constantly edited, cleared of misses in painting, and often and completely overplayed.
I work without sketches, in white, because it is better to feel the living process of writing. And the fact that my work began to arouse interest among fellow painters and connoisseurs, even more, as they say, imposes responsibility. In any case, painting for me-and joy and flour, doubt and discovery, which, I hope, is useful for others.
Leo Dyaconitsyn