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Artist Exhibitions:
Over a 20-year span, Russian
artist Victor Lysakov has
showcased his paintings at
several prestigious
exhibitions around the world.
His works have been displayed
in both main and solo
exhibitions in Russia, Poland,
Germany, Sweden, Italy,
Austria and France.
Following is a comprehensive
timeline of Lysakov’s
accomplished exhibitions:
...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
Lysakov Art Company
305 Forest Ave.
Pacific Grove, CA 93950
831-375-7100
info@lysakovartcompany.com...
Further Information
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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Commissions:
Coming Soon!
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Reviews for Victor Lysakov:
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Interview with Victor Lysakov
By Lori Wilkinson
For Carmel Magazine, 2007
Victor’s answers translated from the Russian by Constantin Lysakov
Lori Wilkinson:
On your web site you said that the night is an inspiration for you. How exactly does it inspire you? Have you always felt this way about the night, or only since you began painting?
Victor Lysakov:
I am the night artist. I did not choose night. It chose me. In my youth I was a "weekend artist." During the day I would study at the university; after that was work. I needed to provide for my family and, even on weekends, I shared time with my family, my wife and child. The only time that was left was during the night. That is how I fell in love with it.
It is an incredibly romantic space; light is different, feelings are different, the sense of landscapes, smells and events is completely transformed. All your senses and emotions are sharper during the night. There is always danger lurking in it; it is dangerous at the very least because we see things differently than during the day.
I still love the night. I strive to set aside time to wander around new cities that I visit at night. I have walked the streets of many cities in the dark and many impressions are etched forever in my memory. For example, Alma-Ata, where I lived for three nights, greeted me with the cool of the night and fountains without people around them. That was in the early seventies. Or take Hamburg, as another example, where I happened to wander through the city in 1990. Two weeks ago, I was fortunate to stroll the night streets of Copenhagen. It is an incredibly beautiful and very cozy city and it is extremely charming at night. You know, it is even more comfortable at night than it is during the day. Naturally, I love to walk the night streets of Moscow, though that particular city has changed a great deal in recent years and it is not as safe as it once was.
I think the right answer is to say that night chose me even before I became an artist. I know that I became an artist at the age of six. It was at that age when I first realized that visual language is more convenient for me in expressing my thoughts and feelings than verbal language. But I remember the night even before that. My father was a career military officer and when I was five years old he was stationed in Germany. I remember the night train stations, the platforms and trains. We moved a lot.
Lori Wilkinson:
How does the night inspire you?
Victor Lysakov:
That is a very difficult question. It is always hard to analyze how anything can ever inspire you. I am not able to give you a brief answer to that. I guess it would be reasonable to say that the decorations of our everyday life change at night. It is the time when the characters of my drama begin to feel differently than during the day. In other words, they live a life that is now separate from the author. They perform a different play. And, quite often, the result of that play is very unpredictable. The only thing that the author can do now is merely watch… and learn. That is quite different from peeking or prying. It is an attempt to participate in this vastly different play, needless to say, without getting in their way.
If I were to put it into the language of art-critics, I would say that there is a presence of a colorful shadow that in some way has a life of its own and does not copy the main character but reflects the desire by the artist to see other aspects of his personages' behavior. It is a variation, if you please, the moment when my animals freeze in the night, pause for a split second and listen intently to delicate sounds of the night.
Lori Wilkinson:
To me much of your work seems almost to be prophetic. It sometimes seems to me as if you've captured a moment in time right before something will happen. Or maybe even the opposite is true, that something did just happen and the protagonists in your paintings are still processing what happened. Is this "moment in time" an important idea to you?
Victor Lysakov:
Thank you! That is a very appetizing, savory question. I never have viewed myself as a prophet. That would be a hard burden to carry. But I realize that when I was a child I understood that some elements of this visionary perception of reality are close to my heart. It was nothing spectacular, just that sometimes, when we played as boys, I could almost step out of the game and see it as if from up above. It comes very handy when you play hide and seek with other kids. I was never surprised by it. I guess we are rarely surprised by things that are convenient. They just come naturally to us. What was strange to me was seeing myself; seeing a boy who looked like me and had my name. He was also moving around and I was watching him. Later during my teenage years I could foresee some events but I did not want to travel that road. I did not want to try and develop these abilities. Instead I focused on the art. In certain respects these are similar qualities because when you are enveloped in art, not craft but true real art, you are dealing with time and space which is quite different from the everyday life everyone else is used to. You take a plunge into the abyss and your goal is to somehow return and to share what you saw there. In other words, you work with data that is hidden from the rest of the people. You need to learn how to adjust to it and how to return relatively unharmed.
Once again I want to renounce this honorable title of the prophet, but your remark that my "characters are still trying to comprehend what has happened" is a very astute observation, and it is as true as the previous statement that they have been captured a moment before something happens. I always seek to give my audience the freedom of choice without giving them the only correct answer. I believe that my characters, though, deserve the same freedom.
The idea of a "moment in time," is by no means a determining factor. I am much more captured by the movement and development of my personages. In other words, it is not a specific moment isolated from the rest; it is a seamless motion. That is why there are a lot of possible variations of interpretation. That repetitive motion serves as the algorithm of life for me.
Lori Wilkinson:
Your artwork can be divided into many different themes or categories. I'm guessing this must be because you, yourself, have so many different interests? Will you speak to that?
Victor Lysakov:
I do not think that my life is that diverse. I am predominantly immersed in art. This line of work offers the contemplative outlook on life. I, and many grand masters as well, consider contemplation to be an art form. One needs to learn it and to cultivate it. You do not invent the theme of your paintings. You discover them. They are born out of nothingness. That is why observation becomes your second nature. But the ability to process what you have observed and transform it into a painting… well …, that is art. Because, otherwise, there is nothing hard to making a painting – you just take the right colors and put them in the right place on a well-chosen piece of canvas.
There are many different names for this ability to be transformed. Some call it trance, others refer to it as prayer or meditation. Personally I prefer what physicists call "absent-mindedness" – it is that state of escape from all the informative noise which serves as a capable conductor. Once you achieve that state and the painting is born, it is hard to return to that state again. It is akin to walking into the same river twice.
Painting is like making love, in whatever definition of the act you want to use. There is emotionally exhilarating shock. You need to rest after you're done and it takes time to recuperate, and that is hard at times. That is why I came up with the technique that helps me – I change the topic. I switch the theme of the next painting. At times I change the palette, sometimes the technique or brush strokes. That allows me to dive into another abyss and to not return to the previous one. When you take your art seriously and do not cut corners and do not want to deceive or cheat yourself or your audience, art becomes a heavy burden. Believe me, some paintings overwhelm the author and not just the audience. At times it overwhelms the artist even more than his audience because he sees more variations and pierces the painting just a tad deeper. You have to learn how to exit this state and how to rest.
That is how my technique of changing the theme of the painting has allowed me to paint more. As time passed, we faced the need to somehow classify all these paintings, and any classification is going to be arbitrary, by its very nature. And, at times, these paintings could find their place in a different motif and live there just as happily. But when you bring paintings from the same motif together, they create a different space, accentuating its various aspects and highlighting its edges. That is a form of language with your audience. I suggest that we dialogue with the viewer in these coordinates and then we proceed and talk about something else. The artist is not only responsible for his creations, but he also tests them first hand, like the old doctors who sometimes were first to test their own new medicines. For me, a painting is a success only when it gives you that gift of fellowship, when you can live with it. The painting hangs on the wall and we talk. The painting has to be an icon or a mirror. Every new day it has to bring something new into your life. When I come to the museum I speak with Rembrandt, I chat with Matisse and converse with many others. This concept of a living spring was clear to me a long time ago and I always subjected my own creations and paintings of others to this rigorous test.
Lori Wilkinson:
How long does it take you to complete a painting? I mean from start (the conception of it in your mind) to the finished piece. Do you do many sketches first or do you work directly with paint on canvas to get your ideas across?
Victor Lysakov:
I have a very good friend. He is a surgeon. He is old by now, very experienced and has lots of wisdom. He asked me once how I paint and then rejoiced greatly when he found out that usually I paint very fast. He said that he hates long, drawn out operations. "At times you spend seven or nine hours at the table," he explained "but I love surgeries that are done fast, in one hour. Those are the types of procedures that I spend a long time thinking about in my head ahead of time." He was surprised to find out that we share the same methodology.
I never sketch anything on the canvas; never ever. Sometimes I can make a small sketch in a notebook, like the one that writers use at times to remember
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