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3DTotal: Do you see Science as something which is ultimately destructive with regard to your paintings and what symbols would you say offered hope in your imagery ?
Vitaly: Technology and science is a double edged sword. It can be good and evil at the same time. Its duality can be seen anywhere around the world. On the positive side we have created great cities, raised skyscrapers to the heavens, chased away the darkness of the night with electricity and have lengthened, greatly simplified and improved human life. On the negative, we can use that same power to wage war on our own kind, or flatten the landscape into an infertile desert in just a few seconds. Even though my paintings are dark, in them there are always rays of light piercing through the darkness, and signs of life holding onto the last strand of survival.
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3DTotal: Which artists would you say have had a bearing on your work ?
Vitaly: Mainly at its core, my artworks are inspired by Ivan Aivazovsky - a Russian seascape Romantic painter. He painted the struggle of man against the ocean. I paint the struggle of man against global events and himself.
3DTotal: Do you think Romanticism still has a place in the modern art world?
Vitaly: Romanticism isn’t as popular as it used to be back in the 18th and early 19th century. Modern popular culture seems to have different ideals, controlled by corporate consumerism and shaped by the digital computer revolution. In my opinion it should never be forgotten just like noble ideals of chivalry or living to enjoy the beauty and power and nature, romance and humanity, rather than products or television. Personally I don’t even own a TV as it is a lot more fulfilling to go out and make my own life an adventure, rather than watch adventures of others. |
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3DTotal: Since discovering Photoshop would you say your interest has completely moved away from architectural design and focused on illustration and digital painting ?
Vitaly: Fate has quite a clear and developed path for me and if I stray from this path I’ll be simply faced with closed doors and messages so ridiculously clear that I don’t even have to ask questions about my purpose in life. It’s as simple as that. I tried getting into architecture, but 1% held me back from getting into a full-time architecture degree at university. I also tried design, but got no paid interior design jobs. I even tried a job involved with spray-painting a plane, but the plane crashed on landing before I could get to it. Only now that I’ve truly begun painting digitally has my life equalized. Now it is comparable to a dime standing on its end. I have everything that I always dreamed of as a kid living in Siberia: a life without fear or worries, daily art classes at university, a career in freelance illustration that I love, my own apartment in the big city, a kitty, a car for the weekends and a beautiful muse to inspire me. It is a turning point in which dreams become real
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3DTotal: Looking at your photographs it appears as though there is some sort of narrative attached to them. Is this a fair comment ?
Vitaly:There’s a narrative to any photography and mine is no different, of course. My photography merely reflects and represents my journeys through the world. I always carry my camera with me, in hopes of some day capturing an extraordinary event like a UFO landing or the sky falling. Till that happens however, I’ll just stick to drawing such events.
3DTotal:If you could summarize your work in a sentence what would it be ?
Vitaly: Romantically apocalyptic dreams of the 21st hour at the dawn of the twenty second century. |
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