Guardian of Secrets Collage

"To me, an artist looks like a myth creature, weird adept who actualizes his spiritual energy in the way known to himself alone and creates a new object embracing its generosity of diversity and fullness of serenity, matter and spirit, the truth of life, and the elements of Eternity within." These Algirdas Steponavicius' s thoughts perfectly describe Vladimiras Nikonovas and his works. Constant search of connection between inner and outer, shape and content, improvisational structures, and strictly built rational order brings the artist V. Nikonovas' s works closer to the synonym of reality where the artist touches a material infusing a soul to it: created birds, fish, and myth creatures come to life. Oeuvre- is a ritual of resurrection, or, according to Antonio Tapies "an artist- is a shaman who recognizes the true matter and injects life into it". Not only the creature resurrected from old mass production object waste is important to V. Nikonovas, but also the surface which the assemblage appears on. Metatarsus of assemblage namely highlights the designed creatures which mostly peep out from mysterious, restrained profundity (creator's spiritual subconsciousness), simultaneously emphasizing its cold metallic sheen. This grand gloss being perhaps paradoxical to its nature, confirms A. Tapies proposition that artists are capable of injecting life into matter.