The cycle of works “Combs” explores the shape of the paint drip, resembling the silhouette of a comb, elevated to the absolute. In the works of this cycle, “combs” become the main characters of paintings, appearing on an abstract background, in different configurations and color solutions. “Combs” become a new simple geometric shape, like a circle, square or triangle. This shape has its own characteristics (the number of “teeth”, the width of the “base”), size and can be oriented differently on the canvas plane (due to the limitations of the process to create streaks, four positions are possible: the “teeth” are directed down, up, right or left). These new figures begin to come to life in the space of the painting, populating multi-layered pictorial formations, lining up in patterns and random combinations.

The first work of the cycle, Combs, was created by me in 2017, and in 2018 gave its name to the exhibition “Combs +” by the art group chrisanddave.art (Kristina Grigorieva and Dave Masalov) in the llil.space in Rostov-on-Don, curated by the artist Oleg Ustinov. During the pandemic and self-isolation, due to the fact that many projects were postponed or canceled, I was finally able to return to my sketches for new “Combs” and began working on new paintings of the cycle. Initially, the form of “combs” was invented as a symbol of the fact that art and painting can help to untangle or “comb” the tangle of life problems, confused thoughts, entanglements of fate and the viewer’s life path, simply by contemplating a work of art. The viewer’s consciousness inevitably enters into a verbal or nonverbal dialogue with the work, and the more attention the viewer pays to the work, the more changes can occur in his consciousness: from changes in the current state, mood, to the emergence of new questions and ideas. Search for meaning and decoding of abstract and non-objective images works of art somehow affect the constantly changing current state of consciousness of the viewer. Of course, this effect is greater the more attention and time the viewer pays to communicating with the work of art. From this point of view, a work of art is a catalyst for internal processes in the viewer’s mind, which, in turn, can lead to a change in his mood, thoughts, decisions made by him, which, ultimately, can affect events in his life.

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