A usual everyday scene in the sports locker room I raise to the plastic systems of old masters. But my transition from the ordinary to the aesthetic is accompanied by emotional involvement, which conveys the nervousness of line, the «corporeality» of application of the paint. The plastic language is destabilized, nevertheless leading to a harmonic construction. The composition of the picture is similar to that by Nikolai Ge «What is truth?» Christ and Pilate» (1890). For me, it is interesting that Ge moves away from the canonical depiction of the gospel story using pictorial means: the figure of Jesus stands in the shade, and Pilate is illuminated by the sun. In the old masters’ works I follow not the plot, but the form: This is a visual adventure of color, lines, silhouettes, light, shadow, composition, because these things primarily affect the senses. The visual journey continues in reality, in everyday life, which my memory fixes, and here it is important to note that if we talk about emotions, then, of course, they are caused by composition and form of a random scene, not by its content. In my works, the classics’ works of art are read rather easily, so there is no question what the painting is about, because these subjects, due to their fame, have many interpretations, they are a formal sign themselves. So through my painting the fleeting becomes very personal and simultaneously symbolic, timeless.

Leonid Tskhe