Truth and Lies converse at the gates of the truth. Print

Drawing was always a part of my life. I went to a school of art in Leningrad (St. Petersburg today). I had a teacher who taught me to feel reverence for works of art. He introduced me to Eugène Fromentin and his passionate relationship with Flemish painting. A child's memory picks random moments, but I remember very well a certain and vivid description of Rubens' painting technique: a gliding hand conquering this sticky and disobedient mass called paint. I became a student of architecture of Saint-Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering. I was lucky with the professors. Among them we had Gennady Ivanovich Alekseev, a connoisseur of Leningrad, a poet and writer. So Professor Alekseev introduced us to the engineering profession. An interesting paradox: we had design classes with Lazar Markovich Khidekel, a famous avant-garde artist, a student of Marc Chagall and a member of the Vitebsk group of artists led by Kazimir Malevich. As a student I devoted much time to fine arts. I was a traditionalist and loved the past, paying much attention to classical architectural details. Professor Khidekel, who was noted for realizing the abstract and avant-garde Suprematist movement through architecture, tried to persuade me that nothing was impossible. Upon graduating from university I continued attending classes with Professor Alexander Pavlovich Zaytsev at the Leningrad Vera Mukhina Higher School of Art and Design. He introduced me to the school of analytical drawing. So I turned to the fine arts. As a painter I kept participating in exhibitions of the Zaytsev School, had some shows at the Architect's House in St. Petersburg, and collaborated with galleries abroad including in Kingston, Canada. The owner of that gallery bought a sequence of my works painted with acrylics. Today many of my works are in private collections in Japan, Canada and Germany. Member of the Union of Architects of Russia since 1990