Eduard Zibnitski 

Artist's Statement

 

How my art is supposed to work is based on fusion of awe and irony. These two opposite things once were combined together in Romanticism movement: feeling of mystery on one hand, and ironic vision of reality, where ideal is unreachable, on the other. Romanticist irony, according to its theorist of the XIXth century, means that you “believe” and “do not believe” in the same time. It acts like this: as an artist I try to express something profound, mysterious, meaningful, and than I realize that I'm not able to do that precisely, I realize that perception of the final piece might be quite different. That the medium itself and the language of visual art in general aren't fit for the task. And then I enjoy this feeling of self-parody, this ambiguity becomes my intention. So I am never too serious trying to affect and amaze the viewer. I'm fine with looking naive, strange or confusing, and too plain and too rough sometimes too. But still feeling of paradox and mystery is rather essential for me, it's what I try to achieve. In my style I feel being influenced by folk Baroque art of the past, and Modern masters such as of German Expressionism with its earthy colour and simplification of forms. I feel fine with broken perspective, unnatural “local” colour, flat figures and wrong proportion as that makes everything more defamiliarized and expressive.

 

The themes I'm attracted to could be described in terms of

• Technology and industry: the world created by men, how it's correlated with nature

• Childhood, and childish vision of the world. So the motive of motion or transportation is very important

• The abyss between wish and possibility: ego's existential drama.