Lyudmila Charskaya

Your academic training spans classical art education and contemporary practice. How do these different experiences shape the way you approach painting today?

I have an infinite love for visual art in all its forms, from ancient rock paintings and sculptures to contemporary objects. Studying art history, I always found something new in it, and my creative thinking intuitively began to relate to these periods. I think I felt how primitive artists once thought, and then my perception developed, inspiring me to create.

This naturally led me to a classical education. I absorbed its fundamentals: perspective, anatomy, colour theory, working with values, all the subtleties of composition. But I didn’t want to stop there. I feel that one cannot limit oneself to a framework; one must move forward.

At the same time, I do not reject media that have been proven over centuries. I am very fond of canvas and paint applied with a brush. I develop my art with the help of these “ancient” tools. Academic knowledge — composition, proportions, colour — has become a reliable foundation and material for experimentation. It gives me the confidence to create something new.

A striking example is the painting “Astra Galaxy.” Its compositional centre intuitively turned out to be in the golden ratio. This was particularly valuable to me: my action was based on feeling, but at the same time did not contradict the laws of nature studied by the Pythagoreans and Leonardo da Vinci. This knowledge has become part of my nature.

So, to conclude, having gone through classical training, I feel that I have the right to engage in abstraction while remaining in harmony with the laws of the universe.

What artistic or philosophical influences—beyond Nietzsche—have guided your journey toward “alchemical transformation” in art?

Apart from Nietzsche, Gnosticism has had a great influence on me — above all as a striving for true, secret knowledge. For me, gnosis is not just information, but a deep understanding of the essence of things, an inner experience of revelation. It is this idea of moving towards knowledge, towards the mystery of the world order, that inspires me and guides my creativity.

The interpretations of myths in Gnostic texts have always seemed incredibly poetic and vivid to me — they fill symbols with inner meaning. Through them, I came to realise that painting itself is alchemical in nature: in the process of transforming pigments, canvas, binders and the artist’s gesture, a new matter, a different dimension, is born. This is the act of alchemical transformation — when the physical becomes spiritual and the visible becomes revelation.

Could you describe your process of turning pigment into “poetry”? How do you balance careful technique with intuitive, spontaneous gesture?

In my artistic practice, a lot of attention was initially paid to a thorough study of reality — perspective, light and air, proportions, tonal relationships. It is a school of observation and precision, brought to a state of almost photorealistic perception of the world. Thanks to this classical foundation, I feel that I can allow myself to seek not just form, but the inner poetry of the image.

For me, technique is not a shackle, but a support. It allows me to combine tension and release, discipline and impulse. When academic techniques are perfected to the point of automatism, the brush begins to move not from calculation, but from feeling. At that moment, a miracle is born — the transformation of pigment into poetry.

I often feel that the paint itself guides me, that the movement of my hand becomes an extension of my inner impulse. Something akin to alchemy takes place: an inanimate substance, pigment, suddenly begins to breathe, transforming into an image, energy, meaning. And this transformation is possible precisely because it is backed by knowledge accumulated through experience and practice, but enlivened by intuition and freedom.

What role do materials—especially oil paint and gold leaf—play in expressing the metaphysical themes in your work?

The choice of materials and the process of creating my works are undoubtedly influenced by my conscious attitude towards matter — towards the very nature of paints. For me, paint is not just a means of representation, but a special substance with the potential to reflect everything: from the visible to the invisible, from form to the movement of the soul. It is as if it already contains all the diversity of the world, and when it is in my hands, the feeling is almost mesmerising.

Oil paint is attractive for its fluidity, plasticity, and ability to change. It seems to me that you can “mould” your own universe out of it. It is malleable, like wax in the hands of a creator — from it a new world is born, new matter, the breath of form.

Gold occupies a special place. Its symbolism has its roots in the Byzantine tradition and Russian iconography, where a gold background always signified not just wealth, but the presence of unearthly light — infinite radiance, a space outside of time. For me, gold is a conduit between the earthly and the metaphysical. That is why I use it very carefully, almost reverently. It gives the work a special mystery, sublimity and, I would say, an inner light that emanates from the world of ideas itself.

How do you decide on the palette and composition for each painting?

When approaching my alchemical painting, I try to look a little ahead — to see the canvas as already finished, as if it exists somewhere in the future and I just have to bring it to life. That’s why, even before I start, I can roughly sense its colour, its breath, the range in which it will resonate. But at the same time, I always open up all the paints I have — as if giving them the opportunity to choose themselves for the work.

The beginning is always spontaneous: I can start with any part of the canvas, gradually moving across its entire surface. At some point, the colours begin to ‘bloom’, to interact, and I feel that they are living their own lives. Then I become more of a conduit — tuned to a certain wavelength, where not only my consciousness is at work, but also my accumulated experience, knowledge and intuition.

When the work is finished, I look at it from the outside and realise that the compositional issues have somehow been miraculously resolved. Sometimes a pentagram appears in the structure, sometimes a tree of life diagram or the golden ratio, from which the entire composition grows. All this comes together naturally, as if following a predetermined route — as if the painting knew its path even before I touched it.

In your statement you write that the canvas becomes a “threshold where the ephemeral and eternal collide.” Could you expand on this idea?

Of course. When I say that the ephemeral and the eternal collide on the canvas, I mean the moment when a fleeting sensation, an emotional impulse or an inner image takes shape and becomes something permanent — visual evidence of what has been experienced. Visual art has a unique ability to speak directly to the human soul, awakening its innermost thoughts and feelings. Through images, artists can guide viewers, gently leading them to reflect on the sublime, on harmony, on the movement of the elements and the energy that fills nature and ourselves. I believe that harmony has its own energy — alive, fluid, constantly in motion. It is this movement that I try to capture in my compositions and colour combinations.

For me, canvas is a kind of threshold between worlds. And the frame, if there is one, becomes a border, a portal through which the viewer can glimpse another space — a world that the artist opens up, but which the viewer completes with their own perception.

Many of your works depict flowers. What draws you to floral imagery as a vehicle for philosophical and spiritual ideas?

Here I would like to quote John of Kronstadt, whose words coincide in an amazing way with my inner feeling: “Flowers are fragments of paradise on earth.” This idea is very close to my heart. For me, flowers are a reminder of primeval beauty, of the ideal that was once given to humanity and that still finds its way into our world through living matter. In every flower there is a breath of grace, a glimmer of lost perfection.

However, I do not depict flowers in a botanical or naturalistic sense. It is important for me not so much to convey the form as to express the idea of the flower — its concept, its inner impulse. Sometimes it is not yet a flower, but it is no longer just an abstraction — something on the border between image and thought.

The flowers in my works are, rather, energetic entities, states of being. A space filled with possibilities, variations, the movement of light and spirit. Through them, I try to show not the object itself, but the vibration of life, that subtle level where matter touches the spiritual.