The plot of the picture covers not only the “Era of hedonism” in my life, but also the concept of being in general with no specific time frame: this is a comprehensive manuscript with unshakable pillars, complemented by my personal experience. Here I play the role of an alchemist trying to catch eternity by the tail, dissect being, decompose it into parts, foundations, personalize it, capture it on paper and show it to the world. In the visual plan, the artwork really resembles a medieval document: Gothic fonts, corresponding flora and bestiary, deliberate decorativeness, black and white explanatory engravings.
Being has a dual nature. The composition of the picture is made up of numbers 6 and 9: six - my number, the feminine, 9 - the masculine, the number of my ex-lover. In general, it turns out 69 - an unambiguous "yin-yang", hinting at intercourse. The constant interchangeability of the two basic elements symbolizes infinity.
The fourfoldness of all things is quite obvious: seasons, primary colors, elements, time of day, types of temperament. I try to give specificity to an impersonal being, shifting it to my own sensory experience, so each of the four main parts of the picture reflects one stage or another of relations with my ex-lover, which is characteristic of any couple and cyclical.
The “Tree of Life” in the middle of the picture captures the allegorical seven-step process of the artist’s transformation from a gray house mouse to a bloodthirsty marten, who killed the mouse, and to a pink bat-knight, whose weapon is a brush, palette and a naked heart. Small Sefirot explain all the metamorphoses: the left side reflects the path of the heart, while the right side reflects the path of light from the sun to the star. These two simple symbols - the heart and the star - are a kind of foundation of art for me: the ability to feel inwardly and the striving for the high.
The main sins are scattered across the entire plane of the drawing, which also form the basis of being, as they are characteristic of any living soul. Each of the seven characters is signed in Latin and depicted as a creature, as if descended from the pages of medieval bestiary. Anger / Ira, for example, appears here in the image of a fighting cock that entered into battle with the fierce Basilisk. At the base of the Tree are two creatures with clearly feminine traits - Pride / Superbia and Envy / Invidia. The greedy demon of Greed / Avaritia collects the stars in his bag.
Men's Right, 6, Sun
Summer. Red. Fire.
Disappointment
The upper small sphere resembles the Sun, whose main floral symbol is a sunflower. The sphere tells the story of summertime sadness. The main characters are my beloved Pierrot, me as the monstrous Malvina, and my faithful dog. A snail-like creature - Lust / Luxuria, containing both male and female sexual characteristics, lurks nearby. Even the demon Despondency / Accidia, watching what is happening, can not restrain amazement from the crisis of relations he saw.
Spring. Blue. Air.
Falling in love
With the first blows of the spring breeze, life begins anew. We are falling in love. A black cat with short fur and small ears looks in love at the terrifying squirrel, holding and pulling it to itself with a golden leash. The slogan of this sphere reads: “Love is when a squirrel is already on a leash, but you still lure her to her knees with sweet nuts.”
Left side, female, 9, Moon
Autumn. Yellow. Water.
Suffering
Oh, in autumn I feel good! Consciousness of myself as a fairy, came to me in late autumn, when I was on a powerful rise: “You wake up once and understand that you are the Fairy Dragee from The Nutcracker.” Our love brought only sufferings to both of us until I declared in a fury that “I’m not a sweetener,” put him in a cage and hung it on a rowan branch. The fairy is vengeful: I tormented him with hunger, teased with a key. Suffering brings a certain liveliness to the relationship: we enjoy tormenting ourselves and tormenting each other. On a branch under a bunch of grapes lurked the demon Gluttony / Gula, copied from my voracious sphinx cat.
Winter. White. Land.
Love
This sphere is divided into two scenes filled with peace and tranquility. There is nothing more intimate than protecting the lover's fragile dream. The slogan of the sphere, devoid of even a hint of sexuality, says: "I love Tanya, not as a woman, but as a creature." Our dream is not eternal, we wake up, the veil of magic will subside. Even the best winter holidays will end.
Two small spheres (Summer / Winter) are polar opposites of each other, but there is a clear connection between them: thus, the two principles, male and female, converge at the point “Coitvs” (sexual intercourse) in the middle of the picture.
The picture is encrypted with a small rebus - “The Evidences of Great Love”: it is proposed to find objects from real life, embedded in the drawing, and proving that everything described above is real.
