«ARTEMIS - XX CENTURY»
2001-2002, oil and golden foil on canvas, 165x180 cm, 66x72 in

The third work of series «EUROPE - THE LAST 300 YEARS»

QUESTION: Artemis is an Antique goddess of fertility I suppose? Or of hunting?
ANSWER: It does not really matter if she is a goddess of fertility or something else. The model itself, Artemis of the Ephesians, a woman with multiple rounded breasts is a very powerful symbol...
QUESTION: OK, but why is this figure interpreted as a symbol of the 20th century?
ANSWER: Of the five works that make up “Europe – the last 300 years”, this one turned out to be the most difficult; it was the last that I made. It was not difficult in terms of technique (it took about 5-7 days of work) but in choosing elements and understanding correctly, I hope.
QUESTION: What was difficult in this picture - combining concrete and abstract?
ANSWER: You know, the work itself, “professionalism”, did not cause any troubles. To choose elements and feel them correctly was much harder. Anyway, painting abstractions is very enthralling work that can be compared - in terms of its intrinsic value - only to tantric sex...
QUESTION: Do you practice tantric sex?
ANSWER: That is another issue, shall we turn back to the 20th century?
QUESTION: To Artemis?
ANSWER: Yes, to Artemis. A two-metre stretcher remained blank for about half a year because I could not understand the symbolics of the central part of the picture - considering the situation “the last 200 years - the next 100 years - from the Bastille to the catastrophe in Asia”. I was absorbed in my daily work - architectural projects, design, watching people’s faces in cars standing next to me in traffic jams, sitting in cafes, and could not decide (or feel) what the most important thing in the 20th century was. Those symbols that came to my mind were too weak and did not satisfy me. Would you tell me: what was the most important thing in the 20th century?
QUESTION: The Second World War?
ANSWER: Much more terrible losses happened in terms of population... For instance the war between poor Paraguay and Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil all together. The losses were about 75 percent of the population of this small country. Communism? Many have outgrown utopias. That French dwarf Thiers finished off this idea in 1871, thank God! So what? The discovery of the atom, space? This is just the beginning... What is so special and exceptional about this century? Perhaps generality, the loss of individuality...
The clue seems to be here. The mass media are the mass weapon. Goods and brands - mass consumption. And finally a curious thing - cloning.
QUESTION: Cloning? Only a few experiments have happened...
ANSWER: We should expect the avalanche of it within the next few years. A mass of clones - genetic, intellectual, no matter... And here from the red self-reproducing, changing and fluctuating mass a phantom appears gradually – a beautiful quiet face with the look of a basilisk... Associations assemble a sign. The Antique goddess Artemis. She is not the mother of just one... She can raise the crowd, the Century.