Yuriy Pestov
Having studied visual and dance art, I work in both fields. With my belief that different art forms can complement and inform each other, I find myself swimming effortlessly from one to another. Composition, rhythm, and the interplay of the volumes exist in both dance and visual art.
For me, dance transformed into dance films, which I choreograph and shoot. Partly because of my awareness of the body as a dancer, and partly because of being enchanted with and conscientious about nature, my art creations often include recognizable human or animal body parts, under the disguise of plants or sometimes, other physical entities. be it human, plant, or even mineral, the growth of life attracts and unites by its mystery. The human, as an ultimate creation himself, while absorbing ideas, shares some of his abilities with other creatures through art.
Right now I find myself engrossed and wandering in miniature groves of forest which I make on different media, in mostly two dimensions, by a process of drawing with pastel, painting, and combining a multitude of materials: objects and textures, found, envisioned, created, and conceptualized, like the printed words “leaf” on a tree trunk. These series are usually representational and detailed yet weirdly unreal; each single part has its individual color and somewhat its own space. On another level of perception, all of these parts create a dance of abstraction as a result.
I also continue work on my series of black-and-white individual plant-muscle-inspired characters and their intertwinings, using charcoal, black pastel, pencil, and ink drawings. Here, I am enchanted by the meticulous laborious processes of the old classical European masters, as well as master drawers of other world cultures. To these inspirations, I add in some chance and modify classic techniques in a contemporary manner, focusing on the clear and straightforward in representation and sophisticated in meaning.
