my ...ism(s)

Don't we all love the moment when at the dinner table when after finding out that you are an artist somebody you don't know well or not at all, asks: So, what do you paint? or worse: What style do you work in?

You can say: I am a landscape painter. Next question will be: what kind of landscapes do you paint?
or you can say: I am a modernist. Next question will be: what is that?

or there will be silence...

What can be a starter for an interesting conversation can be a death silence in others. An art conversation can turn into disagreement, fight, disappointment... art is worse than politics at the dinner table.

How do we come to our isms? How can we define them? If an artist will be honest and works a lot his styles change through life-time, sometimes months, sometimes, years, sometimes hours. Artists think, compare, read, listen and use there own bodies, eyes and minds to make a new or at least there own creation. ... some painters use there bodies to paint, some thoughts, some theories, but I would think that the most important way of the process is a combination of all the things above which in a mix of personal history, psychology, politics and may be even orange juice in the morning will cook into a final art product.

So, if I take my lifeline from the first day I painted my style will add up from those elements:

artictic childhood filled with art, museums and painting father 
being a student in Soviet Art School
discovering of "unofficial art" in the Soviet Union; freedom - something to belong to
working with Grisha Bruskin, discovering symbolism and a power of language
moving to New York
discovering and belonging to Abstract Expressionism
moving to New England
discovering the ocean, drawing a horizon line across my abstract painting
reaching a point in English, when I was able to translate my own poetry into English
painting curtains and chairs over my landscape paintings


coming up with 

abstracted 
landscapes 
symbolically 
bilingual and 
theatrically narrative 
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multiple-faceted personal symbolism   Possible problem:  ( too personal and volnurable, hard to translate)
abstract expressionistic paintings       Possible problem:  (old fashioned, sometimes too beautiful)
absurd and honest narrations   Possible problem: ( too psychological )
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 ... a true Pandora's box of images and emotions that I happily share with viewers with delight for a moment of pleausure, intoxication, beauty and honesty. No problems!