'And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul' -- John Muir
I spent my childhood in the mysteriously rich and exciting world of Slavic folk tales, permeated by foreboding forests, thunderous seas, ragged legends and fairy tales. Steeped in dark myth and wild legends, Slavic folk tales paint a world of witchcraft and magic, a land of mystery, beliefs and traditions. Wild and wonderful tales, Slavic folklore is seeming of mysterious and fearsome beings and spirits.
Even as a child, I have was fascinated by the ephemeral nature and the beauty of the folk tales. This fascination has followed me into adulthood. My childhood years unfolded near the mysterious and legendary enchanted Murom Wood, a vast stretch of ancient, uninhabited woods, dark and foreboding. The Murom region is considered the center of inexplicable phenomena and is famous for the mysterious events. It is the Bermuda Triangle of Slavic folklore.
"The breadth of the universe escapes the senses, and in the center of this confusion is Old Russia, and the beating heart of Old Russia is the Murom Wood. It is an ancient forest, deep and dark, tangled with long flowing veils of moss and sinewy vines stretching skyward in their eternal quest for sunlight. Knurly root-knuckles corrupt the forest floor as each giant pine and fir digs deep into the rich brown earth for life sustaining minerals and water. The difficulty of passage through the wood is compounded by the many areas of lowland swamp, gloomy glades and interwoven underbrush. Beasts of all sizes and types make their homes in the Murom Wood. During the day, the din of life fills the sunlit branches of the forest canopy with every audible noise, loud and slight, but during the night, the dark is laden with the sounds of stealth, assault, and the crunching of bones. In the Murom Wood, the cycle of life spins in brutal, balanced harmony. *
Near the Murom Wood is a town of the same name, and in the town of Murom are told many tales concerning this ancient, Murom Wood. These tales reach back in time for hundreds, and possibly thousands of years because, as you know, people have lived near the Murom Wood, in the Vladimir Region of Old Russia for centuries. The mystery of the Murom Wood saturates every tale told by the townspeople, and in these tales there are wild bear and wolves, and other beasts of claw and tooth. Along the rutted road that divides the Murom Wood into equal halves, hide robbers and bandits poised to pounce upon unwary travelers, often leaving them tied to trees without their money, jewelry, horses, and sometimes even their clothes. There are also tales of lost children, strange sounds, and indefinable lights like a hundred people running helter-skelter through the forest with a hundred dimly lit lanterns. But what the townspeople were truly afraid of were the evil spirits and witches living in the Murom Wood, for against these atrocious apparitions, there is no defense." *
* excerpts from the book, Baba Yaga written by Noel Forest Price and illustrated by Marina V. Shipova
As a child, I was very taken by folk tales and fairy tales. When art began to permeate my life, illustration and my love of folk and fairy tales collided. Many studious years were spent perfecting my classical techniques and when steeped with my over imagination, the culmination is what you may discover in the pages of this book.
As with literature, art can also be a vehicle in the telling of stories. There are many stories behind the art, just as there is art behind many of the stories. When told well, words unfold a story, leaving the listener with definite and purposeful dialogue. When art or illustration tells a story, the story is open to much more interpretation by the viewer. It is fascinating to me that this latter perspective is individual and completely unique to each artist and viewer. I love to create multidimension-layered images that people can interpret in whatever way they may. And even more so, I love the sense of freedom granted me as an artist, and the ability to create anything and everything I can possibly imagine. Digital art and illustration has become this revenue of self-expression where can I form images to identify with hidden qualities within myself, communicating with all possible realities. Although not proficient at stringing words together, art and illustration enables me to tell my many stories, through visual linguistics. Art is an amazing tool helping me to draw out some of the world's negativity, red-shifting those negative emotions into the creation of something beautiful. It gives me hope and purpose thinking that someone may find the beauty in life and living through my artwork.
I live now in the Pacific Northwest, where the mountain forests meets the Pacific coast. It's a wonderland of trees, leathery-leaved, evergreen salal, hemlocks jacketed with strands of sage-colored lichen and lush trees covered in beards of moss. It has its own magic, and echoing through the dense greenery and the hollow sound of the raven, are the faces of life waiting for me to paint, draw and illustrate. I have always loved working within the portrait genre in both art and photography. I live in a cabin in the woods, with very few neighbors. My own fairy tale begins at home, surrounded by trees which stretch out from the earth, pointing toward the clouds, swaying in the prevailing northwesterly being a constant reminder of how I feel about my own life, living and artistic endeavors. Now, I draw out the faces I see in nature, in trees and even rock. As subject matter, trees can be spooky, frightening, inspiring and beautiful. Walking alone in a twilight forest, through one's imagination, trees can take on many shapes and forms both inspiring and frightening. I observe the natural beauty around me and allow my imagination to flow. I don’t view them through my eyes - I view them through my inner-being or soul. I feel that fantasy is not an escape from reality, but rather a union of imagination and the world.
I've been working on this fantasy series for quite a while now... nearly 30 years. Over these years, I've created dozens of sketches, drawings, paintings and even some sculptures. In the last few years I've started focusing more on digital art creation and generated digital art with Artificial Intelligence. Digital art transforms the perception of image creation and pushes the boundaries of reality to new and infinite heights. Image editing applications provide the tools an artist can only dream about, breaking down the walls between imaginary and reality. We are approaching an age where imagination reaches beyond the constraints of 3D dimensions and allows artistic possibilities previously unimagined. That new digital reality is my canvas, allowing me to create my very own visual and conceptual world emerging through the intersection between painting, photography and computer graphics, that finally has culminated in this project.
