Silhouettes (2023) Painting by Aeon

The sea was a little rough. I entered it to ride the wave. Next to me, some people were having fun riding the waves too. They were on the sunny side, and I had to squint every time I looked in their direction. Suddenly the clouds blocked out the sun for a couple of minutes, and the world seemed stopped—plunged into some cosmic calm. At least, it was so in my perception. So I had a kind of hypnotic trance and the moment of insight. Finally, I could see and comprehend everything clearly between me and the light source, which became diffuse and soft but still bright enough. Those people entered the shade against a pale light. The weirdness of this scene struck me. Because of the shade, they seemed enormous, like pagan gods riding the sea like a magic chariot. It seemed to me they covered most of my view with their silhouettes. Having come ashore, I decided to sketch this scene from memory, and already a vague idea of future painting appeared. In this work, I disassociated myself from the direct narration by only using the observed scene as a creative impulse. Further, developing the idea in the studio, I used a relatively minimalist approach, striving to transfer the insight that lurked in the sketch, which bided its time!

✔ The painting is signed on the front and back. It is on a gallery-wrapped canvas with finished black edges and comes ready to hang. "Silhouettes" was created between March/May 2023 at the Otherworldly Dream Studio in Jerusalem.

About the series "Intelligent Water":

The changes we have wreaked on the Earth clearly show and are prescient of the future disaster. However, as an artist, I always strive to underline the presence of Light in every work (meaning the Light in a broader sense). I think this is our only hope in these dark times, and it is essential for me to identify my work precisely with that.

I like the hypothesis that Water is a thinking substance of Earth that catches the signals from the Ether and transforms them into some psychic energy. We are not independent creatures and are intensely dependent on Water (among other things), and it's a fact that hard to deny. We live on the living planet of an intelligent ocean, where, as in the Strugatskys' "Solaris," Water is a form of life. We are nothing more than carriers of particles of its intellect.

My inspiration for this project revolves and impels from around the beach area with a clear center point - interaction humans with Water. I started by observing and sketching people on the beach. Then I worked on actual paintings in the studio. As I wanted to make my work more laconic and neater, at some point, I felt the need to get rid of minor elements, leaving only the most "precious" ones. I also felt the minimalistic background could have an exciting impact on the composition. So I first made the background, then constructed the center elements using the prepared sketches.

I think of this series of paintings as bold surreal revelations that might equip us to consider radically new views of reality and reflect a unified picture of the world, where everything is infinitely interconnected.

Related themes

CosmosBeachMarineSeaWatert