Creating art is the key to my life. Creating art allows me to express my inner vision. Images flow from my imagination and come alive on canvas.
There comes a time in life when words are not enough to express the astonishment one has before the Ultimate Beauty that has been created by God. A time when a person needs to exceed the borders of words, a time when paintings can do more justice to this immense, wonderful feeling.
ART is a reflection of our reality.
Magic touch of inspiration. Unique curves, smooth ends…
some strokes - few words,
one world interconnected with another...
leading to an inner satisfaction.
My work is a perpetual beginning. When I start painting I have no idea how the painting will end. Each piece is the result of an experimental journey in vivid colors, contrast, magic, movement and fantasy. Photoshop, ink and a brush provide the best translation to what I want to say. My paintings are windows to many of different emotions. Each painting has its own style and rules. Most of my inspiration is drawn from music, dreams, nightmares, rainy days or starry nights.
Over the years, with a help of my life partner - Jeff Lienkaemper, I've found the center of my head to be a very peaceful and enlightening place. It is at once quiet and filled with all the colors of existence. I find the steps of my own unique path in this lifetime. Jeff transferred my wild spirit into finding my own style.
When I was 3 years old, my father drew a dog for me. After that I would sit for hours, pen in hand, drawing. My grandmother thought my newly found “hobby” was wonderful, until I ran out of paper and she found my “murals” on her nice white walls! Although my career as a graffiti artist came to an abrupt end.
I was born in Ukraine, and I was a typical child of the Generation X.
- I grew up street-smart but isolated, with career-driven Mom and disabled Father. I was a kid with a house key around my neck, because I would come home from school to an empty house and a sick dad.
- I was very individualistic, growing with a desire a chance to learn, explore and make a contribution.
Being a part of the best educated generation, I was very interested in psychology, particularly the process used by Freud to interpret dreams through drawing. And little by little that I arrived at a full appreciation of the result of increasing experience, and under the influence of work by symbolist painters like Salvador Dali, Marc Chagall and Gustav Klimt.
In 90's I had a chance to spend some time with
Artist Yossi Vardan who introduced me to Paintings, Photography, Sculpture. He pushed my limits and inspired me to not be afraid of colors and oil paint. " Don't look into my Eyes...- he said. "You will never know who you will meet,a Demon or an Angel..." Influenced by importance of dreams and valid revelations of human emotion and desires; I walked into the World of Surrealism.
The Surrealism in my Art is battle of my imagination and my transformation weighting it down by social and cultural taboos.
In 1996 I moved to the United States . However, instead of pursuing a career in Programming, I went to the Academy of Arts in San Francisco. My fist homework was sold out to
www.underview.com/hbsolaris.html.
But teaching children has always been in my blood. My mother, Larisa is my first and my best teacher in my life.
Once I asked her, "What do you like best about teaching?" She replied, "The excitement and satisfaction I feel when I am giving a little part of my heart to each of my students."
To me, that's what teaching truly is: giving something back.
