Терапия осознаванием / живопись осознавания

Painting of Awareness

Modern Ukrainian Abstract Painting

This is my contribution to modern Ukrainian abstract art. I believe that abstraction conveys the essence of things, just as Awareness Therapy conveys the essence of psychotherapy.

And if the painting is painted in a meditative state of pure awareness - it also conveys this state of deep awareness that develops the viewer. I mean the deep awareness of Tibetan Buddhism, which is the unity of "bliss and emptiness", "clarity and emptiness", freedom and knowledge, wisdom and compassion. The light within. Which creates, transforms and liberates everything.

I first "planted" an image on canvas just after receiving a Buddhist initiation - "Introduction to the Gate of Tantra" - from one of the outstanding Tibetan Buddhist teachers of our time, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche.

And although I had conceived the first image - "The Fabric of the World" - several years before, it was this initiation into deep awareness that gave me the courage to express it on canvas.

But it seems to me that a certain trace of that initiation can be traced in my paintings - they convey a state of deep awareness to the viewer.

Also contributing to my decision to become an artist was the feeling that "in psychotherapy we do not create anything material." Although, of course, the client's states that are achieved as a result of our work are wonderfully embodied in his life and change him, there is no object that could be demonstrated to others.

Abstract Painting of Awareness became the answer to that feeling. My abstract paintings became the objects that convey my psychotherapeutic achievements and my meditative experience. But, at the same time, they abstractly depict what inspired me to create them.

I would like to note that my medical education and acquaintance with the spiritual world led to a special attentiveness to what exactly the painting, the picture, conveys, what state.

And, it seems to me that with Abstract Painting of Awareness a new page begins in the history of Ukrainian and, in general, world abstract painting.

Because the past abstraction was, in my opinion, the "finale" of the development of painting before it, one might say, "dissolved it in the void" of the suprematic space of Malevich's square.

It was "emptiness with a minus sign".

And abstract Painting of Awareness creates or, more precisely, opens "emptiness with a plus sign", a living abstraction, full of vital energy, which is not "the finale and dissolution", but the "beginning and source" of everything that appears.

This new modern Ukrainian abstraction becomes the source of creating a new world.

"Fabric of the World", oil on canvas, 40x80 cm.

This is my first abstract painting and it is about the "interconnection of everything", which is an important part of Buddhist wisdom. But it is important to understand that Mindfulness Painting - like Buddhist wisdom - conveys not only and not so much a concept, "thoughts about it", it conveys a real invaluable living experience. This image was not born "from the head", not from the desire to convey some thought that appeared in the dual superficial mind. No, the painting was born in "pure vision" beyond the boundaries of logical thinking and, I hope, conveys to you this deep meditative state. At least, there has never been a person who would not say that "there is something there".

But I got the inspiration for writing it from the other side of the world - from H.L. Borges' story "The Writings of God." An Indian priest, tired of hating the conquistador and wanting revenge on him, deciphers the writings of God on the skin of a jaguar.

And, having solved them, he immediately realizes that the whole world is a fabric in which he is one thread, the jaguar is another, and the conquistador is the third.

And the feeling of hatred leaves him.

This is my second painting - "Autumn Pond", oil on canvas, 35x50 cm. I got inspiration from a real autumn pond, which was where the initiation took place, and around which we walked at that time in the breaks between the teachings of Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche. This is one of my main ideas - that abstraction, abstract painting should depict reality. Regardless of whether it is the reality of the external world or the reality of Truth. Because it is all one reality, it is all a manifestation of one source - our deep awareness, our true essence. In unity with this deep awareness after the initiation, this painting was painted, and, I hope, it conveys it to you.

This is my third abstract painting: "Sunflower", canvas, oil, 18x24 cm. It was painted in response to a nostalgic feeling of longing for the Motherland when I was still living abroad. At the request of a Ukrainian woman who also lived there. It conveys the power of the native land: a sunflower full of seeds, sunflower fields cut by dirt roads made of pure black soil. All this is a symbol of fertility. Observing this painting returns and awakens fruitfulness in what you need it for.

My fourth abstract painting is "Strip of Manners", acrylic on canvas. 40x70 cm. It conveys the state of waking up early in the morning, when the first rays of the sun hit the window in the courtyard-well. Incredible joy overwhelmed me and I immediately painted this picture.

Below is what I have created over the years.