My profession is painting, for it is my second - or main? - language. A paintbrush saturated with colorful substance, and a canvas or paper surface which receives its touch - these are the instruments which help me express my attitude toward the world in the most complete and adequate way.

I was brought up in the tradition of Russian Realism. At the same time, I was inspired by the masters of early, pre-revolution Russian Avant-garde. In the past, these used to be the extreme opposites, but now it is clear that they can be unified through creative synthesis which brings forth pictorial culture, freedom and stylistic flexibility.

Vassily Kandinsky once wrote about the art of inner necessity. To me, such necessity is born as the result of exceptionally vivid and keen visual impressions. I do not feel the need to "imprint a motif", since there exist other known media for that purpose. It is important for me to express inner states which arise from the contact with distinctly speaking to me forms and colors of the visible world, whether they are the streets of Moscow where I grew up and lived a significant portion of my life, or the hills of San Francisco near which I live presently, or a bouquet of fresh flowers, a face of a friend, a Gothic facade, a lithe contour of a nude body...

The only way I can express my inner states, my deeply personal experiencing of the visible world - is through visual forms which are transfigured within my own self. Diversity of emotional responses requires different approach every time. Hence the variety of my stylistic techniques - from pictorial illusion to abstracted expressive forms. Moreover, there are in my painting two constantly prevailing general principles which supplement each other. One of them requires spontaneous imprinting of a genuine inner impulse; the other - professional control over construction of the pictorial whole. It is in their interaction that the idiomatic cosmos of my paintings is born.