I create painterly  stories with dark, lyrical narrative.    

   While all the self-help books, gurus, advise us to "live in the present”, I invite you here, to live in the past.   

     Past, as a pensive introspection rather than a period drama, but at the same time I love to indulge in rich Victorian and gothic aesthetics with their dark, dripping, luxuriously baroque melancholy.   

   Melancholy, which now, amid modern minimalism, Live-Laugh-Love,  eco-hippy and pop-arty aesthetics, seems to be a lost art…

 In my work, I thrive on melancholy which somehow, unexplainably, connects us with something deeper inside us. It creates an aesthetic value which transcends its mundane, purely psychological dimension.

   In my art, sadness seems to be almost celebrated, as if through a series of rites, nearly religious in their devotion.    It is rarely a raw, direct despair, rather its aftermath, a delicate residue left with passage of time. As Italo Calvino said, "melancholy is the sadness which has taken on lightness" 

   Alongside this theme,I am trying to explore the boundary between our world and and the subtle possibility of another; how they may intersect, interact... Although I employ some dark fantasy imagery I try to use it sparsely, concentrating more on enigmatic, non obvious way it may express itself in our mundane casual experience (even if this experience is dressed up in visuals of bygone era).

   Posing for my pictures gives me the felling of fully owning the process however, this is aimed not at a self portraiture but creating a character which will carry the narrative of my visual story. Victorian-stylised costumes with a modern gothic twist, together with my modelling efforts of channelling this particular air of eeriness, strangeness, help to make the character come across timeless, nearly ghost-like, further remove it from any notion of participating directly in our reality and by doing so, it feels at the same time more distant and paradoxically, closer, as would a figure from a darkened old painting.  

    From the technical side, my workflow feels more akin to that of a painter rather  than purely, a photographer.     I first work on a mental sketch of the picture; this can be a long process, I carry the vision inside me before it comes to life. Later, I carefully stage the image, I "direct" and "act" the part (I model and co-model for most of my artwork), I arrange the lighting framing and composition, but still, even with all these steps, I feel, the photograph straight out of the camera, no matter how skilfully prepared and captured, is still merely a product of a machine.  

    It is only through a careful, patient post-processing that, for me, it acquires its artistic value. It is in front of my Mac that the most creatively fulfilling part begins...    I work on every detail with digital brushstrokes and pencils, enhancing patches of light and shade, penciling lines and re-touching textures to make the earth more earthy, leaves more leafy, porcelain more cold and fragile...  

    Human face is touched deep to its skin texture, its delicate capillaries around irises, glimmers around pupils, nuances of light and expression.    

   The last stage, printing, is equally important, it has to preserve all the details, gradations, colour palette it has to "sing"! For this reason I use only giclee prints on high quality archival paper (please refer to my Print section for more information)

   It is my deep hope, that when my art finds a home among your walls, it will give you deep personal inspiration and a feeling of an emotional anchor each time you look, or even glance at it.