I imagine the viewer entering a different world in these series of paintings. A quiet world. A spiritual place where one can lose oneself. As an introvert I try to find quiet moments throughout my life because we live in a very loud and fast environment. I’m lucky to have my secret getaway places where I can lose myself in nature’s nuances, such as changes in light at the end of the day. These changes are fleeting. I try to understand how the departing light affects colors on the bark of the trees against the pink and purple glow of the evening sky. And I try to observe how the light and the colors affect me. As a result, the colors are part of the concept in this painting. I use very saturated, contrasting colors to convey a calm forest scene. I always enjoy that dichotomy (loud color to express silence) in this series.
I chose winter forest scenes because I love how the naked branches of the trees create very interesting and complex designs. As a painter I do have favorite painters, but a very large influence in my work comes from film directors. Andrey Tarkovsky, Nicolas Wending Refn and Denis Villeneuve are three powerful sources. Part of their idea of visual craft is to submerge a viewer into their world. This is what I’m trying to do in all my work, but most of all in the "Forest” series, which has been in the making for a decade. I of course, don’t know how my paintings would look if my early childhood was lived in a healthy, calm environment. It was not.
Instead, when I was seven years old, I found myself in a war zone which my family and I managed to escape. What I paint today, seeking peace and calm, comes from my thoughts about my family's dynamics and major numerous relocations. I am always aware of the contrast between life in a war zone and the total relief of life on the other side of the world. Visual art (indeed ALL the arts) provides a way to alter reality, to select reality, and create the world one needs.