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Life of Still Life

There are certain moods that with unchanging constancy evoke in us particular memories, forcing us again and again to experience inexplicably overwhelming, incomprehensible emotions, first felt in childhood. The lighted lantern in the summer garden at night, quiet conversations by its light, the sound of countless insects. The circling ofmoths around the lantern. The circling of couples to the sounds of that old tango on an illuminated dance-floor, lost somewhere in the night. The circling of a thick crowd of people on the Piazza del Popolo, lit up by light from the lantern of the sun. A feeling of loneliness not of the tragic-autumnal variety, but rather of the light and sweetly moving sort not your personal loneliness, but that of everyone living under this starry sky. And the sky itself, just like a multitude of distant lanterns, each with its quiet conversations.

There is a sorcery to simple things, the hidden meaning of which can suddenly be revealed to us in certain situations. A long table covered with white linen immediately after some sort of celebration. The intoxicating smell of extinguished candles lingers. The lamps above the table are still lit there are twelve of them. In thought, you sketch in the thirteenth, and the meaning of the scene abruptly changes. What was an ordinary scene has become The Last Supper, and the lamps have assumed a truly cosmic significance, taking the place of the apostles. In essence, they are perhaps even more precise representations than painted figures would be. Invention interweaves with reality, color passes into color, so that at times you can't tell where the borders are. The goblets on the table turn into the basins of enormous fountains. The streams of water shining in the sun are like the splash of champagne when glasses ring together. And the entire painting becomes a banquet of water, a Roman Banquet or perhaps a Baptism. This table is a stage on which various plays take place, written by the coauthors of life and fantasy. The Feast of Kings has just been completed, and the tablecloth, stained with wine, or perhaps with blood, has been taken away. A new tablecloth, a new canvas, is ready for yet another play.

Your consciousness, captivated by the game, generates image after image. At this point, it s no longer even important what elements you are manipulating in order to articulate a composition. Pumpkins thrown down in a heap, with their profusion of forms and colors, fractured here and there, bruised, broken in halves, transform into a Battle. Then the logic of the game suggests the subject Mourning, and a pumpkin carved in two, with entrails exposed, becomes the body of a slain soldier.

There is a completely different energy to be found in watermelons (the series High Summer ). It s a merry, succulent energy, splattering beyond limits that of an eternal summer, when anything is possible and every exaggeration is justified. Paint runs across the paper like the juice of the watermelon, flows down your hands and elbows, floods the tablecloth, floods the world with joyous energy.

The day is over. Clothing thrown on a chair retains something of the presence of its wearer, yet at the same time, it acquires its own, particular character and mood. At one moment it is proud and calm; at another happy and ironic; at yet another it helplessly slips from the chair after a long, hard day. Paintings set in a row appear as though they are conducting a leisurely conversation, appear as though they are looking at you out of the corners of their eyes, becoming observers, members of the jury, judges. You want to make them red in order to magnify the effect. Then again, the logic of the game suggests that there should be twelve paintings so that it will be possible to imagine them as the apostles who have gathered for that same Last Supper. Then they will head out to wander the world, abandoning the studio, their forum every work, like any other object, has its separate fate before they will meet again some day in the halls of a museum.

-Zoya Frolova