I am a multitalented artist, traditionally trained but forward looking.

I grew up in the studio of my father, a well-known impressionist, who started my training at the tender age of four. My roots are in European schooling. My head and heart are here, in North America, the land of the free, the land of innovations. My talent was recognized when I was six when my work was shown at the Art School for gifted children in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia. I enrolled in the St. Petersburg Art School at the age of nine, but drill and boredom were continuously stifling my imagination; I put my art career on hold. I never felt free to create until I moved to North America.

After moving to North America, I became obsessed with night photography and light painting. I had the privilege of being mentored by Karekin Goekjian and the late Steve Harper; these giants helped me to rise to the top. After winning a number of prestigious International competitions I was offered a Mentor position with PSA (Photographic Society of America); and later, I served as a PSA Regional Director. My public presentations and award-winning articles inspired a generation of artists.

I spent over a decade up north, chasing Aurora Borealis, my other obsession. Roaming night planet further shaped my perception and sensibilities. That decade was particularly decisive and shaped me as an artist and as a human being. When I resumed painting, it helped me find my voice.

Since my nightscapes and Aurorascapes are done in impasto style (oil), thick and heavy, I can only paint on birch board. I literally sculpt them. I paint with palette knives employing a unique technique and style that took me years to develop. The challenge of this technique is that I can’t "redo" the stroke once it’s placed. Any pigment mixing is done when the knife is shifting the layers of the paint. If a stroke is off, the work on a painting is stopped as it is ruined; and so it's discarded. The main influencer of devlopement of my impasto technique was the late Sir John Kyffin Williams.

German Expressionism in general, and Der Blaue Reiter formed by Kandinsky, are especially important to me, as I feel a close connection to that particular Zeitgeist (spirit of the age). I feel that I have to bring the elements of that style to its logical conclusion, and while I ended up developing a unique style of my own, I feel that the Spirit of those times is back and alive in my paintings.

I consider Gerhard Richter my biggest enabler: his discontent with the Dresden school and social realism echoed my own experience. His narrative helped me to free myself and to realize that I can do whatever I wanted, regardless of my training, upbringing or cultural influences – I kept my skills, but discarded everything else, including my given and family names.

While I initially was inspired by Gerhard Richter’s style, I developed my own technique for my abstracts and I am working on bringing it to a new level, adding complexity, creating 3D effects, mashing up layers, colliding them and bringing entities from the unconscious to life.

When I create, I venture into an imaginary world, pulling whimsical creatures from 'other dimensions' and parallel artistic universes onto the canvas. These creatures happily live in the abstract landscape that I painted for them, participating in their mundane cosmic events, forming peculiar social interactions. You can travel each canvas for hours and never arrive at the same intersection twice. The interpretation of the discovered patterns will vary as if the paintings are in a state of flux.

I view my abstract work as my own Liber Novus, akin to the “Red Book” of Carl Jung. It is a visual feast of my own confrontation with the unconscious.

My choice of colours is driven by the neurological condition synesthesia – I literally hear and taste the process. Additionally, spatial synesthesia helps me navigate the paintings' layers. I am currently working with the 3D substrates and exploit my spatial synesthesia to create 3D warping of space and explode them with the 3D effect of the paintings.

Expressing myself goes beyond visual arts: I play piano and trumpet, write books and music, develop software and invent computer systems, build boats and engines. I had a near-dead experience in a motorcycle accident, which enriched my life and my art. I faced my own mortality at the age of 19 and don't take a single day of my life for granted. I have an urgency to create and innovate, which goes well with servitude to my ever-pressing muse. Having crossed the line between life and death, I try to "peek" into another dimension when I create.

My work was exhibited in US, Canada and Europe, including Miami, NYC, Chicago, Ottawa, St. Petersburg, and aired on Live Art TV.

I hope that my work will strike a chord with you.

When shadows grow long, I get restless; and when the darkness falls, I drive into the night to greet celestial life. I find myself a private spot where I can be bothered only by coyotes. At first, I feel fear as a city dweller, but I look at the stars and let it all go.

I surrender and tune into the night landscape - it is my canvas, and the flashlights are my brushes. I orchestrate a symphony of light while my cameras are silently recording my fantasies.

... and when I am back in the city, I look at people and wonder how many of them never venture into the night to witness how beautiful their moonlit planet is.

I find myself in the studio, staring at the scariest view – white canvas. I overcome my fear and smear it. But if I don’t, I build a carbon fibre canvas, nice and black, like the welcoming night.

A new day is here, and I find light unbearable. It jars and dulls my senses but I tune into the imagery of the friendly nightscape that is always with me, sun or not.

I initiate the alchemy of mixing the pigments. As I choose colors, I am flooded by the sounds, tastes, and sensations that are overpowering me into submission. I surrender and let the colors choose me.

The images from the unconsciousness pass through me onto the canvas. I can’t control the process, I can only guide it in the direction that I want, or not. At times I feel insignificant and humble. I feel dissolved in the process, as I would dissolve in the night. I collide the layers, introducing another dimension to a flat surface. I venture into imaginary world, pulling whimsical creatures from ‘other worlds’ onto the canvas.

I know exactly when the painting is finished – when my brain rolls off the synaesthesia wave. I stop and look at the rhythmical patterns of colors. The geometry reveals parallel universes inhabited by the mysterious entities. They happily animate the abstract landscape that I painted for them, participating in their mundane cosmic events, forming peculiar social interactions.

I travel the canvas for hours and never seem to arrive at the same intersection twice. The interpretation of the newly discovered pattern varies as if the painting is in the constant state of flux.

I consider myself a medium, akin to my brushes and painting knives, a tool of a sort. I draw my inspiration from the night scenery and the aurora borealis. I inadvertently expose myself to the dangers of a night that is both sinister and nurturing. Roaming the night planet puts me at risk. I slave for the chance to enter into that elusive state of being that presents itself when I am sleep deprived and in danger, when I am the most vulnerable. In that state I connect with something bigger than myself. My studio work is an extension of that experience.