Artist's Statement

My work explores the themes of otherness-as-identity. Whatever degree of abstraction defines my thinking and visual self-identification it has all to do with the search for my own image in a great existential sea of sweeping changes. Russian, European and American myths of national destiny and private identity take a utopian dimension in my work. I am absorbing and expressing the psychology of otherness as a fundamental part of my identity. I immigrated to America from the Soviet Union in 1989. I want my art to be like a well-worn military wool blanket that gives you warmth, love and history.