My working process oscillates between two poles: the intuitive and spontaneous—forming my drawings and paintings—and the deliberate and planned—forming my ceramics and three-dimensional objects. Throughout the many years of working to negate the Soviet Academy in which I was trained, I have built the core of my technical practice around materiality and searching for the most useful material for each expression. The total experience of various materials is crucial to my ability to be either fully spontaneous and intuitive or deliberate and planned.
The dominant formal center to all my creative processes—drawing, painting, and three dimensional objects—is line, specifically the axial line around which movement is embodied in all conceivable directions, not only the forward moving line known by common time. Supplemental to the axial line are various methods of form-making such as spots, brushstrokes, colors, tones, and other possibilities.
For my drawings and paintings, I have arrived at using predominantly black India ink placed onto paper with self-made brushes of suitable length and width. These materials have best supported my ability to produce work on flat surface without the input of consciousness or fixated thinking. The environment I immerse myself within also plays a critical role in the unconscious factor: I have spent over twenty years working in the far beach dunes of Cape Cod's northern coast during early morning and late evening. The most recent material transition has been incorporating color inks into the process, which speak to my interest in color as three-dimensional form.
When working with ceramics, wood, fabric, and plaster for creating three-dimensional objects, I am most interested in the index of my hand on the material. Unlike my drawings and paintings, these processes are far more conscious depending on plans and sketches akin to architecture and design. I think of these pieces as translations of my flat drawings and paintings into three-dimensional structure, which exercises my ability of transitioning from unconscious to conscious methods of creation. The close connection of these objects to my process of intuitive drawing and painting deems these objects non-utilitarian but rather self-sufficient.
My creative goal across the range of materials and processes is always the same: to make artwork that is non-entropic or energy reducing. The search for harmonic form dominates throughout, and the aim is to fixate and translate a non-linguistic state of dynamic positivity to the viewer.
The dominant formal center to all my creative processes—drawing, painting, and three dimensional objects—is line, specifically the axial line around which movement is embodied in all conceivable directions, not only the forward moving line known by common time. Supplemental to the axial line are various methods of form-making such as spots, brushstrokes, colors, tones, and other possibilities.
For my drawings and paintings, I have arrived at using predominantly black India ink placed onto paper with self-made brushes of suitable length and width. These materials have best supported my ability to produce work on flat surface without the input of consciousness or fixated thinking. The environment I immerse myself within also plays a critical role in the unconscious factor: I have spent over twenty years working in the far beach dunes of Cape Cod's northern coast during early morning and late evening. The most recent material transition has been incorporating color inks into the process, which speak to my interest in color as three-dimensional form.
When working with ceramics, wood, fabric, and plaster for creating three-dimensional objects, I am most interested in the index of my hand on the material. Unlike my drawings and paintings, these processes are far more conscious depending on plans and sketches akin to architecture and design. I think of these pieces as translations of my flat drawings and paintings into three-dimensional structure, which exercises my ability of transitioning from unconscious to conscious methods of creation. The close connection of these objects to my process of intuitive drawing and painting deems these objects non-utilitarian but rather self-sufficient.
My creative goal across the range of materials and processes is always the same: to make artwork that is non-entropic or energy reducing. The search for harmonic form dominates throughout, and the aim is to fixate and translate a non-linguistic state of dynamic positivity to the viewer.
All Images ©Mikhail Shevelkin