Tadeush Zhakhovskyy, pastel artist.
Artist statement.
Part 1. My method.
When I am working on a painting, I observe that the space of a painting starts to deflect my initial idea and prompts me to the new and unexpected ways. The painting, in fact, starts managing the process of creating itself and complicating my original idea.
For example, I have started another painting and pictured something. Now I try to
grope for further shapes and colors, and then I intend to picture, let’s say, a flower. And it happens as this: I’ve had an idea about how to picture the flower and I begin doing that according to my plan. Then I suddenly see that the painting rejects my idea of a flower, but “offers its own idea” instead, a kind of flower idea too, but nothing similar to mine.
Here it’s clear to me that if I "stand my ground" about how to draw a flower, it will be more safe and sure for me – it’ll be less risky to spoil the painting (using pastel you can’t overlay one color with another.) If, however, I draw it "prompted by the painting" – the result will be almost "at random".

And then I realize that if I make a drawing "my way", it will be just the case when the painting will be spoiled! Totally, moreover!
Over time, I repeatedly found that I should draw not "a flower" but "the Painting".
A Painting brings me into "a Color Dimension”.
My creative approach is to not interfere with this.

Part 2. My basics.

From my perspective, my artworks are not the reflections of any of my everyday emotions, feelings or attitudes.
Being engaged in fine arts for about 30 years, I noticed that the power that gives you creativity can act paradoxically to the inner world of an artist and their sensations of outside world.
I think that Creativity, an Art - is just another shape of Life that exists within us or nearby and it can exist right now, paradoxically to any thoughts, images, feelings and social prejudices.
I think that I convey in my paintings not a something that IS around or within me but rather that is NOT there. And due to the picture – it’s appearing there.
Before I begin the next painting, I have only some kind of new combined image, most likely, “thrown to me by a Creativity who was scampering about here.” And now I feel like inner childish desire, a demand: "I want thi-i-s!!!”
But, a Creativity seems not very concerned about how do I "transfer into reality” that thrown-to-me-image. I need to puzzle out this image first ("What’s that?!!!”) then I need to fit it to the composition of a painting and deal with colors. And, finally, I am to put myself together, I am to switch off the outside world and to make my way again through this, familiar to every artist, difficult, complicated and weird process of making a painting.
And in the end, I confess I don’t understand sometimes - why it's pictured this way?
But I am fairly sure of the mood which brought the painting on and which, I dare to hope, is attached to the painting.
A mood is innate to the image – that’s what fine art all about to me.
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