Divided Line Introduction

This painting is an introduction to the series idea for which began as an observation of a personal obsession with the recurring imagery of arches, holes, deformities, reflections and other elements of the environment as a symbol of a portal/passageway.

 Those closest memories and most remarkable dreams, for me, are connected to the location where I spent my childhood and am constantly revisiting in the current (more conscious) state and time. While digesting the idea in my head I realized that subconsciously I was making a connection to Plato's allegory of the cave/divided line, which has always been on my mind in the recent period of my life.

The walk from the subway station to my apartment in StPetersburg is the most frequent passage of space I have revisited in my life, and so it has ingrained itself in my head with dreams and memories, becoming a metaphor for the progression throughout the levels of comprehension (in Plato's allegory of the cave).

There are several progressions in the series, taking place simultaneously but individually:
Formally the images move from showing depth to a flat surface, while appearance wise they take a more recognizable look in the end. Regarding surface treatment, in this case, the string of canvas is the physical manifestation of the divided line of progression. The passageway begins as an artificial movement of an escalator, emerging outside onto the river of transportation through concrete, railings and wires, eventually the human reflection makes the shadow of its own presence apparent.

The basis for an observation is achieved out of these evolvements, when upon reaching the end of the line some understanding is accomplished. The realization of a place of a human being in his surroundings, and his relationship to it, in a brought sense (of humanity as an organism) is painful but necessary in order to enlighten the artificial cage of the mind.

Driving itself on its own assumptions and empty conclusions unreasonably focused on the material sensory realm. Natural light on an unnatural material which was pervertedly transformed from something once alive is an example of how attempting to subordinate the nature and its cycle, to support the bias framework of desire, and excess, reveals its futility of not really moving ahead but staring into a closed door.

Constructing a cage only to later occupy it ourselves.