Sistermoon Svetlana Didenko

Your work highlights emotional honesty and intuition. What role does spontaneity play in your creative process?

Thank you for your sensitivity..

My works are an expression of an inner impulse that words alone cannot express… as if something greater than words wants to manifest in form, to be discovered and seen by others… and of course this impulse appears spontaneously… when something wants to speak through me…

You mentioned that you don’t plan your paintings in advance. What usually prompts you to start a new piece?

All my works begin with an internal emotional charge that demands to be released… it’s my dialogue with the world, when there’s a strong need to speak… when you simply can’t not create…

How did the pseudonym “Sistermoon” come about, and what does it mean to you?

About 20 years ago, a friend called me that… back then I didn’t really understand its meaning, but I liked how it sounded and I remembered it… Now I associate it with depth, intuition, and femininity.

Many of your paintings convey deep internal states. Do you consider art a form of self-healing or emotional release?

Of course, both are powerful impulses for creation… by releasing emotions, the body is freed from the excess accumulated energy, harmonizing our nervous system… that’s why I consider any form of self-expression a basic self-regulation mechanism, given to us by nature… but there’s a huge field for reflection here, since you used the word art, not creativity… we can endlessly debate what is art and what is not, but for me personally, art is something that serves… it serves the viewer first and foremost, expanding their perception of recognizable forms… so unconscious splashing of madness onto a canvas can hardly be called art unless it’s brought to a point of recognizable association… but the fact that such a form of self-expression can be a worthy creative work — that’s 100% true.

How do you use color and texture to convey invisible or subtle emotions?

Color is an absolute reflection of what is happening on a subtle level… we may not always be aware of the stages we’re going through, but we will always choose the palette that symbolizes them without error… perhaps this is one of the main goals of art — to show the artist a movie about themselves… to bring the inner outward, which can also be recognized by others, creating a sense of unity and connection…

What materials and techniques do you most often work with and why?

Since I don’t plan the work in advance, I have to give the paint the opportunity to reveal itself, give it freedom, the necessary time, and leave space for experimentation… That’s why I mostly paint with acrylic, as it doesn’t limit the artist, easily takes on different forms, and doesn’t require an academic approach or a preliminary sketch like when working with oil… Acrylic helps the painting to emerge naturally…

How do you know when a work is finished — that there’s nothing more to express?

There’s always something to express ) but I finish the work when a hint of objective reality begins to appear in the abstract forms, when a tangible shape of the real world is born by chance… I’m not very fond of techniques where there’s nothing but chaotic color mixing… I believe a work should resonate with its viewer, and resonance occurs when the brain recognizes some familiar forms, colors, images…