After the lifting or easing of the isolation regime, the people rushed to the streets and preparing to leave. People are tired of sitting in four walls. But there are those for whom isolation is the norm. For artist Andrei Cherkasov isolation are part of everyday life, whatever is going around. In his workshop he creates from porcelain villages and cities – whole worlds.
His ceramic installations have no analogues in contemporary art. Today the project “Art of Life” went in his fancy Studio.
After graduating from the Surikov Institute in 1982 Andrei Cherkasov more than 15 years working as a muralist, creating the architectural designs of buildings. But one day his life changed.
Buddy asked to sculpt a few Souvenirs, and Andrew was fascinated seriously. Few more years of his first experiments resulted in a separate area which is much wider than the decorative-applied art is porcelain conceptualism. Imagine a whole street of different houses, for which people go, the children run, rushing the slide. Dozens of buildings and characters.
every world has its time and mood. Each hero has its own character. Whether it’s a girl in a scarf, carrying a bucket of water into the hut, the priest leading a procession, or a cat on the bench. These porcelain reconstruction of bygone eras – not just nostalgia, but an attempt of the analysis of time, its rhythm, way of life. Cherkasov believes that the only way to understand and analyze the past.
To create objects anywhere in the world. This is a very painstaking work that requires, on the one hand, precision on the other – the scale of thinking and the view of the designer. How to create porcelain Russia, Andrei Cherkasov told the “MK”.
– What is your personal creativity zone? What a space, its mood, the drink? Does it matter the size, wall color, window view, the absence or the presence of additional attributes?
– Now, over the years, do any hard used me space to hand all the things needed for work, and not to think about where everything is. With a mandatory opportunity to be alone for a long time and stay with your thoughts and “fantasies”.
Isolation, an opportunity not to be distracted by anything for several days in a row. And preferably to live and in the Studio, or at least to be from home within the half hour.
the House and with family is always strained, even if they are extremely sensitive and understand everything. Size, color, etc. doesn’t matter. Must be tea. Preferably the potatoes. The rest strung along the course.
In his youth inhabit new places quickly. Even it was fun: take the working stuff in the empty box (in construction, for example) – and now it’s yours tom and workshop for many months. Monumentale determined the format, came, brought, work, sleep, eat. Until it’s done. And this year it happens to be.
Ceramic, which now requires regularity, stability and prudence. For years – in my case long projects. In a strange way the workshop turned out to be room in the once nearly deserted basement of the schools. Over time he checked, was sometimes even very densely populated, but I somehow managed to stay out of the format. Then I had to register in the state and to perform the duties of the storekeeper. So for many years and share a life in work and service. For the workshop, for familiar, lived-in places – necessary.
is it Important for you loneliness while working in the Studio? Can you work, if there is someone else?
– When did monumentally learned to ignore strangers. Working in the school or on the facade above the street. But partly there is possible to turn away from reality in scale, dirt, traffic, high forests, or at least the goats. Ceramic jewellery is not very compatible. Any distraction, even briefly, interrupts initiated the idea. Hate it. If close friends – no irritation, but also to operate at full capacity impossible. Do something calm, neutral, muttering – say, about his childhood. And do not ask questions. And not for long. But in reality – it is what it is.
How long can you stay in the Studio alone? A few days, weeks, months and not go in white light?
up To a month could before without any problem to be alone. The best job generally begins on the third day of solitude. But after six months of almost complete isolation want to have to go out, to straighten up, clear my head, hang out and about. Now, with all sorts of social networks, can be stretched longer. Went online, looked at someone, exchanged a few words, polical and back. The exhibitions, of course, have to crawl.
– How important is it for you food, when inspiration strikes? Do you have your recipes to fuel creative activity.
– Food is better simple. Without much choice. And fast in cooking. When the work is in full swing, the food and everything interested in the least. And it is only necessary to stop, cool down, distracted. Recipes “warming up” of creative activity – perhaps a more complete immersion into his artistic virtual.
But sometimes, you also need to burn when they understand that floods the lethargy, laziness, and want any, even if extraneous energy to raise your own degree, to intensify. Then helps in an argument is raging, or mad rock-n-roll from Presley and hard to Choi and Shevchuk. Or drink a little (if more – on the contrary, only us��play).
Then, when the direction found and the machine to work, you have to focus inside, and I include audio from smart and cute to me. His knowledge, sensitive observations, thoughtful rhythm and decency and kindness set to the correct mode, do not give to despair, to fail, and accompany the day as background. These audio are not distracting, but rather give work eyes sound complete, fill the loneliness and tone for the highest demands.
Sometimes it is necessary to check the intermediate result, completely withdraw from the process. To sleep, to play, some sharp toy on the computer, to go to hell. And re-enter the job from outside, to see a stranger sight. I have rarely, but it happens that someone of the friends brings this untrained eye. Sometimes for me absolutely unexpected and therefore very valuable. But that is rarely necessary – every six months, a year, two, when you already have to appreciate. And few can give such.
– it is said that many artists work in “altered state”? Is it for you? What helps you sink into it?
– be Sure. Always. More precisely, the “changed” it to “Everyman” for the artist. And so, for us it is working normal. That is, in the town getting like a stranger, like an alien. This is what change gives independence views surprise “perspective”. Before, in his youth, to keep this condition could not last long, it came in a flash. And something long, time-consuming, to perform was impossible. On the day, at least, two was enough. At the sharp momentum suddenly found. Suffered how to learn to hold it longer.
Learned over the years – disconnected from reality. School after breaks, after sleep, for example, to return “meditation”, lying in the dark, eyes closed, abandoning the world….
People in order to live in the apartment for a few months needs to buy food. And what should be in your workshop for a few months, besides food? Specifically – what are these materials?
Nothing. Only materials, tools, and now the Internet (before it was books and magazines, but a little). Of course, the bed, light and heat. Now the player and downloaded audio lectures, memoirs, something important and unread in a past life, the music sometimes for the background, for the presence of something clever, sharp and friendly, mentally close. Radio, Internet.
– what, in your opinion, mass self-isolation will change our world? Will affect the consciousness of the artist and the viewer? How to affect the culture?
– On mass – will have an effect. Probably. “Trends”, then-se… On the individual – no impact. Self-isolation for the artist is the norm. Content will, probably, some new plots…. And, perhaps, produ��cool global review of the relationship to humanity. Not as a result of this “isolation”, but as a result of the new experience, observing the behavior of others in these unprecedented circumstances.
