I could define my creative method as "subtracting fortuity" in the name of artistic expressiveness and penetration into the innermost essence of things. The material world becomes dematerialized in the work of art and is translated into the language of visual forms, where light, rhythm and color reign. Thus a certain duality of the real and non-real is created, and that is what I work with. When I succeed in conveying my various impressions of life, blending them into an integral organism of color and visual imagery where all the forms not only agree with one another but are also infused with the single flow of energy, then my painting acquires a life of its own.

Art is an ability to love and be open to the world. It is thanks to this ability that art unites people with its supreme creative joy. I'll try to express myself more precisely. At some point I clearly realized that hatred separates people while love brings them together, because it compels a person to open up. And then I understood what Alexander Blok meant when he said that only a person in love has the right to be called a human being. He meant it in a broad sense, the broadest, in fact. Only through this ability to love can we attain a creative potential and our life becomes meaningful inasmuch as we are capable of creation. Hence is what determines my attitude to art not so much as a profession but mainly as a state of my spirit. For all that there are professional criteria of judgment, of course, and points of departure. But my road towards such awareness and such vision has been long and arduous.

It would be an understatement to say that I love medieval Russian art (icons, old frescoes): it invariably makes a very strong impact on me and it opens up to me in accordance with my readiness to imbibe it. The most essential aspect of this art is its inner energy, its focus on the fundamentals of human existence, its overall confessional tone. Old Russian art teaches the modern-day man an important lesson. We are all really missing that spirit of peace that Old Russian masters strived to convey and succeeded admirably. I cannot help emphasizing one more important quality of this art: it expressed not the will of the artist but the revelations experienced by him.

How Works of Art Emerge? God Knows! I don't even try to analyze how they come into being – no point at all. I don't invent them: it's as if they overtake me so to say. My task is to be ready for them and sort out my relationship with the sheet and paints in front of me.

I don't perceive a graphic picture or a painting as a window into the world, but as an independent, self-contained world in its own right. It is not possible for me to tackle a new project until I have a pictorial intonation for it, which first appears as a sensation rather than a clear vision. Only in the process of my work something gradually transpires and finds its rightful place, acquires energy and role in the overall structure of the sheet. However, when I say "transpires" I mean least of all the narrative aspect and logic of the picture but rather the thinking behind it, that is, the surface and the space, black and white, light and colors, form and color, etc, when a certain energy is created from the interaction of all these constituent elements. I mean the artistic content of a work of art. I see the aim and the meaning of my work precisely in this visual substance which reveals the world to me and enables me to see my role in this world.*

It goes without saying that everything (or much) in art is determined by the nature of the artist's talent. But when an artist first conceives a picture and then looks for the most expressive form to convey his conception he inevitably becomes an illustrator of his own pre-conceived worldview (his idea)

As for social significance of art works, I'd formulate it like this: the social significance of an art work is directly proportionate to its artistic quality. The more perfect an art work is the more socially significant it is for society, and vice versa: outside artistic perfection an art work cannot be of any social significance.

The currently widespread appeals to artists to increase their social activities show complete lack of understanding, for the most part, of how these activities manifest themselves in concrete terms. As a rule, the artist is advised to tackle "significant" topical themes and treat them in the spirit of "modern-day requirements". However, it should not be a matter of an artistic presentation of a socially significant theme but a matter of cultivating an organic overall worldview, which alone can produce genuine socially significant work of art, and that will show his social activeness. The scope of an artistic worldview and its quality determine the importance of the artist rather than the importance of the theme which the artist may or may not tackle.

Doing his best to improve the quality of his work the artist thus enhances its social significance.

Art is not a profession but a worldview, and its nature determines the appropriate forms of expression – this is how I understand it. My creative problems arise from the need to establish plastic, rhythmic, and other connections to achieve an overall organic perception of the world

A sheet of paper is a whole cosmos, a universe. It responds to your touch accordingly. It reciprocates paying you in kind. You ought to carry on a very sensitive and careful dialogue with the sheet of paper in front of you, or any other material in your hands. This is a living organism with which you need to establish a contact. A work of art begins then to live a life of its own and I never know how it is going to end. All its elements interact with one another creating their own living space of forms, rhythms, colors, light, and this is a way to attain what I call organics, when a work acquires a face of its own and starts its independent existence. If this happens it means that there's been an organic blend of all the artistic components into a single whole to make them all carriers of this combined energy. *

I'm not trying to change anything, or impose anything, but if through my works people will feel just a little closer, clearer and warmer towards each other then I have not lived and worked in vain. Life does not teach anything by definition, it is art that does. Through art people develop a certain system of values. It seems that art teaches us only when it does not try to teach us, when it manifests itself simply, naturally, and freely, thus materializing the artist's relationship with the world.*

I understand "holy essence" as what makes all the living things alive and life-giving (creating life). Art, as a God-given gift, is a reflection of that heavenly light and its creative and spiritual energy. In my opinion, this should be the only point of departure and criteria for a humanist and creative position. The rest is from the Devil. It's not easy to follow this principle, for it is assumed that you yourself live and act according to this principle. However, I believe that following this way art may fulfill its mission to become a creative and spiritual bridge among people.

When you work, when you are immersed in a project which occupies your mind completely, you forget about everything else. Your Ego is the last thing on your mind. It may seem incredible but as soon as you begin to focus too much on your own person everything is finished and there is no more art.

Your works become cold, cerebral, stilted, forced, flat, or just sheer rapture. How can you allow it!