Like the Gnostics, I am truly convinced that this world is a cruel prison built on a mixture of darkness and light. Mercy, Compassion and Beauty are paths for human being to escape to the Ideal, but of these three, the last one is the one I understand the most and feel the most excited about.

I spent 10y studying mythology at University. One of my fav is the Fall as read by the Gnostics.
For them to pluck the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge is to gain true sight. But this condemns one to the nightmare of awakened existence. It is a source of suffering-yet only path to ultimate salvation

As I have mentioned, many of my paintings are inspired by or dedicated to the Might and Magic series of RPG games (related to #homm2 and #homm3). This one (“August rain in New Sorpigal”) was commissioned and purchased by a kind person from Germany. May he live long and prosper!

The best escape from despair is the secret rooms of the soul, where you can hide while you are painting. It is a pity that it is not always possible to find this harmony.
This painting is called “Secret garden” - like the 1911 children's novel, which I have read well into my 30s.

Sometimes despair reaches such a pitch that I want to cry out: “look, I can't take it anymore.” But who should “look”, who should hear my cry but the Lord? You can't ask this of mortals, only pray to God, who - chances are - doesn't exist at all
To whom, then, is this cry that takes the form of art?

Besides depressing surrealism, I also draw still-life paintings for my favourite RPG games: Might and Magic 6 and 7 (both are related to #homm2 and #homm3). These works are always welcomed on Reddit, so I feed on likes of now adult game community. They help me not to give up this art out of despair.

My favorite artists are Giorgione, Paul Delvaux, and Van Gogh. Unlike the first two, I have only a few stylistic borrowings from Van Gogh. But I've always been inspired by his fate. Especially “Wheatfield with Crows” - one of the last paintings before his death. Here is my tribute to that artwork

And here I've depicted a lost paradise. The girl (who is my soul) is still in the etheric space of the imaginary, but the leaves are falling and death (finality) is waiting around the corner. Similar to Arwen walking through Lorien, from which the elves have long since departed.

A PhD degree helps me conceptualize and overcomplicate things so I can give a little lecture about most of my paintings. Here, for example, I say hi to existentialism, choosing to contemplate the beauty of the stormy sea instead of wandering mindlessly through the labyrinths of social reality.

This is my first post, so I'll drop a few facts about myself through some pictures.
I'm a melancholic on antidepressants, trying to survive through art I do. The lady on the painting is my soul. You'll meet her again in further paintings.

🛠️ Tools: Blender, Procreate