My paintings show the endlessness of obvious and unobvious relationships in this world with the help of mysterious storylines with the metaphysical sense. Being the guide between the worlds, I mix reality and magic in a genuine meditative form of my witchcraft. Direct ascetism of the flat surfaces, completeness, and persuasiveness of the compositions, seamless statics, graphical coding of the deep sense into the schematic images, order, and rhythm of the painting focus the observer’s attention on what is underneath.

The person tries to hug the fish, and the fish is cold, eely, and slips through the hands. It’s unpleasant to hug a fish. You wouldn’t want to do this. Heaven knows, why it’s necessary.

The person needs to forgive themselves for the things, which happened with them. For the misfortunes, which followed one another. For the people, who abandoned them. Forgive themselves for everything. But forgiving yourself is similar to trying to hug a fish. And the fish slips through the hands.

I made this painting during the art residence “Zhovka-Art-Kreminna.” The residence’s studio was located on the premises of the Basilian Ukrainian Greek-Catholic monastery. The whole body of Saint Parthenios, coated and booted, is kept in the Church of Holy Jesus Heart in Zhovka, Ukraine. This early Christian martyr and thaumaturgus, who is originally from Armenia, was tortured to death in Rome in 250 A.D. During his lifetime in Rome, it was ordered to mercilessly torture all Christians. When the court directed to burn the Saint in the fire, but the fire didn’t take him.

Saint Parthenios had a gift for accomplishing winders and healings of the sick. This painting is devoted to him and symbolizes the miracle when the fire refused to touch the bare feet of the Saint. Another sense, conveyed in the painting, is the burning pomegranates, which symbolize engulfed in pain hearts of people, who ask Saint Parthenios for healing.

When something terrible and irreversible happens in life, like death or trauma, it’s desperately hard to outlive it. Big dolor gets easier when you can carefully translate it into restrained grief. The feeling of dolor eats and destroys a person from inside, and the feeling of grief consolidates and strengthens. Grief is an adult feeling.

The death of the beetle represents the manifestation of the fact, that something has happened, but it’s not that scary as it may seem at first. Children, playing, buried the beetle in the pile of the fallen leaves, and then they forgot about it. The death of the beetle is not a terrible event, which evokes dolor. The death of the beetle is just a little bit sad. It can be outlived. And the spring is on its way. The seeds on the hills near the house, where the children live, have started to germinate.

Ganmushpia is a non-existent word, which came from the abyss of prolonged insomnia. When you undergo increasing fatigue, fear, and anxiety for many hard months, you just want to go to bed, get under your blanket, and fall asleep. You want a dream that would bring you into the waters of forgetfulness. But you cannot fall asleep. There is no sleep. Your control is so strong, that it doesn’t let your body sleep.

On these hard nights, the thought about something complicated and the memories about unresolved situations gather in masses in your head. A bunch of thoughts is illogical and unstructured, like the buildings of the castle, which pile one on another, which are ready to fall from the cranky rock every minute.

Two tremendous snakes try getting inside of the castle, destroy it, eat everything inside, bring darkness and fear. They are the two snakes of the panic attack – the fear of death and the fear to let the control go.

In today’s society, women’s victimhood and complete self-sacrifice are particularly valued. The woman who is dedicating herself wholeheartedly to others, who doesn’t argue, who doesn’t get angry, who doesn’t change an established order, who accepts everything with the obedience of a sheep what the world tells her to do, is offered encouragement. White innocent sheep is eyeless because she doesn’t see where she is, who is she, and what happens. She is carrying with pride the golden wings of victimhood, placed on her by people. She is proud of her achievement, as she went a long way of suffering, she stood a great deal of humiliation, she took care of a lot of people, she deserves the praises and glorification. And a crown.

The painting conveys the feeling when a person is unfairly offended. Somebody has crossed their borders, betrayed their basic trust, said something to them, which shouldn’t be said.

This should have never been said and done. The person didn’t expect this from a friend, but it happened. Yes.

And the person turned into a stone. Immovable, solid, hard, rooted. The stone, which stands on the dry cracked ground. Only eyes cry in the sky.