Luminous Decay

Moloch - Denis Forkas Kostromitin

Burial I - Denis Forkas Kostromitin

What is the art scene like in Moscow?

Moscow fell under onslaught of the worldwide “conceptual art” crusade. What had used to be the avantgarde and stood against commercialization of art was bastardized by society into a moneymaking tool. “Pure art” graced with neither talent nor skill, demanding zero effort from its creator and aimed at momentary entertainment reigns the scene like a plague. These days everyone can (and does) claim to be an artist and/or an art lover. Galleries are hopelessly infested with “common objects in uncommon environments” and some such “relevant” nonsense.

On the other hand, there is a rather strong current of low quality surrealism and art derived from it, which – even though it clearly lacks the impact and bold experimental spirit of the movement’s first wave and has that distinct second hand flavour about it – openly opposes itself to the tyranny of “concept” I’ve already mentioned.

To my dismay things like Russian fin de siècle aesthetics, Rublev’s elegant ascetism as well as the clarity of Kandinsky’s abstract painting theory don’t seem to inspire young Russian artists at all. People are forgetting their roots and that’s never a good thing.

How old were you when you started drawing?

I was very, very young when my pencils/watercolour/gouache obsession manifested itself. One of my childhood hobbies was to draw and paint illustrations in between ones included in books thus unfolding new – sometimes strangely disturbing - horizons in favourite tales.

When did you first become interested in the occult?

My first encounter was rather dramatic. Back when I was a grader (about 8-9 years old) one of my classmates’ elder brother committed a gruesome suicide. I learned that the man had been member of a local religious sect (please, bear in mind that it was around 1985, a sect like that in a Soviet country had to be the most clandestine thing on Earth) when about a month after the incident the classmate invited me to his home and showed all those books, daggers and jewelry he had concealed from the investigation. There were also drawings of naked bodies in strange positions, charts and calculations, ink studies of animal anatomy crossed with glyphs and symbols.  Even though I couldn’t possibly hope to decipher the meaning and purpose of all those things at the time, the images stayed with me. I attempted to trade my valuables for those books and drawings several times, but to no avail: my friend cherished his deceased brother’s collection.

A few years later the iron curtain collapsed and junk occult literature of all kinds started to seep in. Those poorly translated paperbacks conveyed my passion some outline and granted bits of insight into matters like the Universal balance, energy management, will, intent, etc.

I realized soon enough that I had no way of putting my hands on any trustworthy occult research and switched to art history, theory and technique instead as there was hardly any shortage of good literature covering those subjects in Soviet libraries. It was many years later that the interest in the occult resurfaced and found its way into my drawings and paintings.

Is there a particular current of occultism that you adhere to, or is it a developed system of symbolism that appeals to you as an artist?

Chaos magic is probably the current I will have to associate myself with in order to give you some idea of my work. Yet, I neither use drugs nor “invent” gods. My techniques include sleep deprivation, meditation and self-hypnosis. I borrow vastly from different beliefs and practices of the past and I’ve found ancient mythology and traditional esoteric lore – no matter the geographical origin as all traditions conceal their share of truth, of course, - to be a solid, reliable foundation for all kinds of occult endeavors. I consider art a highly religious practice for it serves as a timeless vessel for truth itself. One cannot hope to conjure a timeless piece if he/she rejects tradition and philosophy. 

You list Austin Osman Spare as an influence and there are similarities in your work, what are your thoughts on Spare as a man and artist?

Without a doubt the man was among the most enlightened magicians of the last century. It is hard to overestimate his introduction of sentient symbols and ideas stemmed from viewing language as magic.

The persevering impact of Spare’s art is surely the result of supreme artistic vision and prowess backed up with technical skill and spiritual sacrifice – a formula worth following for artists of any school or direction.

To me Spare’s personality will always remain an example of uncompromising artistic stance and courage. Moreover, I’m profoundly moved by his never-ending quest for new means of expression (as opposed to modern artists’ doing the same perm) and gladly accept the living experimental spirit as a blessing.

Describe the automatic method.  Is it possible to produce work of artistic merit in automatic mode, or do you use it purely to instigate a trance-state?

The method itself is fairly simple. The idea is to divorce your mind from drawing/painting process, to try and become completely oblivious of your physical drawing act. This can be achieved in many ways including a chemically induced trance, but I prefer meditation. Ultimately you obtain your shape from the ever-evolving chaos of the resulting line/stroke work; and it is at this - later - stage that you put your skill and intuition to use.

An artist may, of course choose to refrain from further development of his/her automatic chaos and leave it to viewers to produce evolving shapes of their very own, so there certainly is quite a bit of merit in raw automatic material. Still, this approach technically removes artist from the process; this kind of work would have nothing to do with his particular vision and thus would bear the same artistic value as randomly arranged pebbles on a beach, autumn leaf patterns or a coffee-stained napkin.

Anxiety and panic attacks pose a major problem for me and it took a lot of energy and research to bring it down to a manageable level. I’ve found meditation and self-hypnosis to be the best tools here. Persistence works wonders.

I also keep setting up “intellectual hooks”, which help me overcome the tides of anxiety and ultimately enhance my work. Philosophy, history, religion, astronomy, biology as well as Victorian fiction and twentieth century non-American films among other things are the fields where my interest is strong enough to keep the chaos of the unconscious feedback at bay.

This subject is somewhat complex, but I’ll do my best to give as simple an answer as I can. Art and philosophy are naturally opposed to all other spheres of human activity aimed at material comfort. Both philosophy and art imply – or rather intuit - that the meaning of human life transcends empiric existence and that the truth is to be found beyond or behind the trifles of this mortal coil. The eternal search for the truth is undertaken by man and originates from his self-awareness. It is absolutely impossible to remove Man the Creator from either artistic or philosophical process as without his vision and understanding the process simply won’t exist. Yet, this vision manifests itself differently in art and philosophy. In art it is expressed in an Image (a painting, a music piece, a story, etc.) aiming at emotional response, whereas philosopher employs logic and expands the tradition by creating a personal Conception / cognitive system aiming at retrieving the ultimate truth and thus introducing the art of Understanding.

Images and Conceptions have always served as pillars of human society; no known civilization has ever been able to manage without this foundation. All known traditions have originated from work of artists and philosophers.

The artist’s role is akin to that of a priest: he uses symbols and brings divine truth to the hearts of his viewers. Emotional response is the current the viewers use to travel back to the source of the effect and thus refresh their values / priorities.

It is this delicate and beautiful process, the genuine spiritual guidance that is compromised in our age of art impostors and consumerism. By discarding tradition society plunges itself into the pits of spiritual degradation.  

Choice… I believe it is the psyche that chooses what to convey through artist. All conscious work with composition, colour, value, etc. (i.e. science) – as important as it is focus- and effect-wise, -  is ultimately defined by an idea scooped from the Unconscious. Moreover, I keep reducing the amount of physical materials (pigments, instruments, etc.) in order to clear more space for pure energy, to be able to transfer the most pristine reflection.

The Image I described earlier is not something artists choose and purchase at some sort of ethereal market. It is rather a “haunting”, an emotional disturbance that lies dormant in the darkness of unknowing until an outer, conscious impression generates an electrical charge between the two and the artist gets his chance to “reel in” the Image. The artist is the reason, the sole condition for this magickal process.

This brings us to the point of “light” and “darkness”. My work is certainly not something a common man will feel at ease with. And this is exactly what the “darkness” (as in “dark painting / photography / music / literature / culture”) is about: the majority’s discomfort. But is art supposed to bring comfort in the first place? Must it take this much talent, dedication and energy to merely entertain a viewer or make his life more comfortable? Truth has nothing to do with comfort.

Now, if my imagination can catch this kind of primal shapes and colours in its traps scattered around the Unconscious, with sincerity being the only artistic principle I’m perfectly entitled to hope my work has at least something to do with the truth.

I’m also convinced that injecting art with poison of aesthetic compromise will only result in horrible short-lived mutations, which will end up as comfortable interior decorations at best. If “light” means emotional swamp, a warm puddle of safety, then I’d rather stay in my volatile “darkness”.

A wonderful question! I believe you are coming from my life-long fascination with the art of Mikhail Aleksanrovich Vrubel. In order to give you some idea of the scale of Vrubel’s artistic possession I’ll have to touch on the origins of his mental disorder.

The darkest chapter of Vrubel's biography started with his loosing the competition for interior decoration of St.Volodymyr's Cathedral in Kiev in 1888. Apparently local authorities, priesthood and the “aesthetics committee” found his vision "unorthodox" and "disquieting". 

Rarely interrupted, ever-growing unease heralded the coming of severe mental illness. Yet, it was in the fever of the century's last decade that the image of rebel spirit, an entity of power and sadness - the Demon - manifested itself in the master's work. 

Vrubel's admiration for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's poetry lead him down the path of illustration. His paintings for the poem "Demon" (1837) by Mikhail Lermontov unleashed something primal in the painter's soul and he took the image way beyond the limits of illustration. Up from early 1890s the ghostly face would resurface in many seemingly unconnected works (e.g. "Prophet", "Azrael", "Lilacs"). The obsession culminated in the overwhelming piece "Demon Downcast" (1902), which the artist proceeded working on even when the painting was already on public display.

You see, such an obsessed, fiery art will cut short all attempts to further explore the subject matter. What can any other artist - myself included – possibly offer here? Is there really a need of new angle? One may go farther and fare worse, as they say.

Still, it might be worth mentioning that I’ve been working on a painting I refer to as “Vrubel’s Demon” for about a year now. The canvas is my homage to the master and a study of his methods. I don’t know if I should exhibit or even publish it online as I find it hard to view the piece as a work of my own. The study is rather an attempt at peculiar artistic table-turning or even necromancy, if you will. 

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