Theatre shaped virtually all of my creative work. It began with the fact that I grew up backstage. My father was a well-known theatre director in Russia. I grew up among stage sets, drank tea in dressing rooms with performers, watched how the lights were arranged, and, most importantly, saw how a pile of plywood and fabric could turn into castles or dense forests.

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Poets, musicians, actors - in short, what is usually called the Bohemian world - were often guests in our home.

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It would seem that my path had been predetermined. I loved that world; it was part of my life, and I could have become an actor or a director - but I loved to draw. I had hardly put down a pencil since I was five years old. What fascinated me most in the theatre was the miracle of transforming the stage into other worlds.

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Theatre was my universe. Over a ten-year period working in various theatres across Russia, I was involved in creating about 50 productions. I built universes, worked on costumes, learned how to create rocks that weighed no more than my sketchbox, and could easily turn beautiful princesses into witches. Most importantly, I learned how simply changing the lighting could transform a romantic evening into a detective horror story. Many years later, I began using that experience in my painting as well.

 

Here you will find several of my sketches, models, and photographs from productions I worked on.