«Non-existence symbols»,
2022-2023
OM HRIM HRIM HUM HUM KRIM KRIM DAKSHINE KALIKE KRIM KRIM HUM HUM HRIM HRIM.
Hymn to Kali.
Hello, Mama.
How are you? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen or heard from you.
The Pastry
When I was little and lived with my grandmother, I remember how I wanted to steal a pastry. But I got smacked on the hands with a spoon, and I felt offended by the whole world. I missed you so much and misbehaved, and my grandmother would scold me.
Stones
I remember how we used to collect stones together. It was an educational procedure so that I wouldn’t be idle but contribute to our beloved country house. We gathered stones in a bag to build a supporting wall. I still can’t imagine why it was necessary. Later, it was dismantled and replaced with concrete. We strained and carried heavy bags filled with stones through mountains and heat. This world that lived in your mind was completely inaccessible to me; you were like an extraterrestrial being. Maybe I was an alien myself.
“I understand you, joker!” the man replied. “Now, I am also in a frenzy sufficient to share my story with you, laughing. But, heaven be my witness, if even a hint of seriousness crosses your face, I am struck dumb in an instant!”
Bonaventura, “Night Watch”
The Storm
There were so many different stories. I remember when I nearly drowned at the age of seven, and then I went swimming in a storm when I was around sixteen. The waves crashed against the breakwaters like mountains. I was already twenty-three when I started to drown again. I got caught in a whirlpool between three-meter boulders. You stood on the shore, waiting for me, wanting to help. I struggled with all my strength, rowing until I surrendered to a big wave that threw me over the rocks onto the shore.
Grandfather
You can drown even without swimming in the sea. When I was seven, I thought I was an ordinary person, untouched by history. But my grandfather died for some reason, and the whole town buried this good man, while they locked me inside the apartment and didn’t let me out until morning. Perhaps they wanted to spare the child from trauma during the memorial. I was “unnecessary,” haha. My grandfather died when I was seven, and I remember him well. They locked me up, they did me good, but I felt like a guinea pig.
Guinea Pig
When we lived somewhere in the forest on a secret military facility (my father was a soldier), they bought me a guinea pig. I loved it very much. I took it for walks, to the garden beds. One day it disappeared, and I searched for it. I found it crushed by a boot near the puddle from which we took water.
“The doll jumps after her, but here the puppeteer makes a small oversight, and the running figure accidentally pushes the jester very hard. The jester improvises a very evil satirical speech, explaining that the creator – that is, the puppeteer – did not deign to assign this lady to the doll, and thus the play acquires true absurdity and comedy, making the melancholic fool the most ridiculous character of the farce.”
Bonaventura, “Night Watch”
The Alien
And what a surprise it is when a change of regime occurs (perestroika), and dictatorship is replaced by liberalism, it turns out that Grandma speaks the Swabian dialect perfectly, and I have a question: why is that so? It turns out that Mom knows it too, and we are not who we pretend to be… And I’m already 23, I’ve lived my life, and does that not matter???? But it matters to me!!! Who am I? Tell me, my dear mother, who are you? And what secret does my family keep?
Vines, 180×150cm
My mother told me about a little house on the edge of the universe, by the Black Sea, while I dreamed of the homeland of my ancestors. I didn’t know who I was, why everyone treated me that way. Now I know, I’m not like them, my roots lie beyond my own perception of myself. Why do I need a little house in the mountains of the Caucasus? I live differently, my dear mother, I’m not needed here. You used to say, “Where you’re born, there you’re needed”… but I’m not needed. So what is this self-destruction of everything dear to me? These questions tormented me… my roots are there…
“Now a tragic situation emerges, and it’s quite unsatisfactory. Namely, a beautiful Columbina appears, and when the heartless brother introduces her to someone else as his wife, that person, without saying a word, awkwardly falls and hits a stone with a wooden head.”
Bonaventura, “Night Watch”
Uncle
My uncle helped me get a job as a cleaner in a printing house, back when I became an artist, and when my father disowned me. I worked during the day and painted in the evenings. But my uncle died after 2 months, and I didn’t even have a chance to talk to him. Everyone in our family was afraid of him, especially the women, and my mother too, she didn’t talk to him, they conflicted. Conflict, everyone against everyone, and the reason was a small wooden house by the sea and four acres. War… for nothing… cheerful and good. Uncle died…
“Here comes the jester again, to soften and console him, but he goes too far and angrily remarks, by the way, what foolishness the puppet is committing, indulging in self-analysis, when she is obliged only to obey the whims of the puppeteer, and he will throw her back in the box when it pleases him.”
Bonaventura, “Night Watch”
Kali
(Goddess beheading minds filled with bad thoughts).
The little house went to Mom. (Grandma died from a pill prescribed by “doctors”). And at that moment, I was interested in pursuing art. Life in this format, like four acres, is not for me. I wanted flight and freedom. It was important for me to know who I am.
The Suitcase
When I was a little baby, very little, about one year old. My parents didn’t have a crib (those were tough times, the Soviet era, we moved often), so instead of a crib, there was a suitcase, as you told me. Once you went to the store, the suitcase accidentally closed, and when you came back and opened it, there I was, smiling at your light, that’s what you told me. Since then, it seems I feel closed, but I smile at the light and at my mom who opens it.
“Whatever happens, whether my face is ugly or beautiful, I’ll try to sketch it for an hour. I hardly flatter myself; after all, I paint at night, so there’s no brilliance of colors, only sharp shadows and bold strokes.”
Bonaventura, “Night Watch”
Mother, Where Are You?
Mother, how distant we are… I can’t see you, I would like to be with you, I wish we could meet and embrace, and I would honestly tell you that I love you, that there’s a chasm between us, and yet we share the same blood. Only you supported me and dreamed with me, you talked to me, always happy when I visited. They say that in adulthood, you have to separate from your parents, but in order to separate, you need to be connected. We were separated at birth, and as adults, we were not connected.
“Oh, people march forward with such agility, and I feel tempted to stick my nose into this silly world for an hour, a millennium later. I bet I’d see how in kunstkammers and museums they copy only the contortions, mistaking the grotesque for the ideal, and demanding it when beauty has long since shared the fate of French poetry and is declared insipid.”
Bonaventura, “Night Watch”
Kali, 70×150cm
Kali, 60×160cm
Hello, Sister
Sister, what is this entity beyond my comprehension, that has surpassed the living created by nature and turned into a goddess…
Hello, sister, you are some unknown goddess to me, who punishes and kills by beheading those who stand in her way, collecting severed hands and hanging them on her belt, a necklace of skulls hitting against her belly, an axe in one hand, and a severed head in the other, those lying at her feet suffered the same fate, bulging eyes speak of love, but love for something earthly, a tongue hanging out of the mouth, dripping something red. Mother, mother, mother… I’m scared.
“I promise in advance to the most venerable public that I intend to amuse them to death, no matter how serious and tragic the intentions of the poet may be. And what’s the use of seriousness at all when man is a creature of buffoonery…”
Bonaventura, “Night Watch”
Woman (Wife)
Happiness is that moment that remains after death. When you, mother, came to us, as it seemed to me, to support me and your granddaughter, because her mother died, and I was told that you wanted to evict me from the apartment where we lived with our daughter, and suddenly you left without waiting for the funeral, it didn’t work out. Why did you keep lying to me all the time?
“A DREAM OF LOVE
No, love is not beautiful, only the dream of love enchants! Listen to my prayer, stern youth! When you see my beloved on my chest, let the rose be plucked more quickly, and the white shroud be lowered on the blooming face. The white rose of death is more beautiful than its sister, for it reminds of life, giving it value and charm.”
Bonaventure, “Night Vigils”
Karma:
“I appear as the harbinger of mankind. In front of the audience, suitably numerous, my purpose is easier to see: to be a fool, especially if, in my own interests, I remind everyone that, according to Dr. Darwin, the prologue to mankind and its harbinger is actually the ape…”
Bonaventure, “Night Vigils”
The Woman who Gives Life (The Second Wife)
For some reason, God, according to the biblical myth, creates a second wife for Adam. It is absolutely unclear what was wrong with the first one. I think that just as he didn’t understand women, he also didn’t understand her by taking the apple. If he had united them together, he would have felt it and wouldn’t have taken it. I have a question, woman, who are you? What are you? I address you, woman, you are my fate and mystery. I beg you, turn your face to me, what are you occupied with besides creating life, and after that, destroying your own children?
“Woman, what do you seek by attaching yourself to me? Have you ever looked into my face before? You with your smile and enticing gestures, and I with anger and malice, whose countenance resembles that of Medusa. Think, my dear, for we are not a couple. Back away from me, damn it, I have nothing to do with you! You smile again and won’t let me go? What does that divine mask mean with which you look at me! I will tear it off you to discover the animal hiding behind it, for I truly cannot call your true face more charming. Oh, Heavens! It’s getting worse for me, I’m struggling, I am dwindling into complete wretchedness—you want to drive me to madness! Woman, and you can find pleasure in playing such an unfortunate instrument like me! The composition is designed to curse, and yet I must sing a love song.”
Bonaventure, “Night Vigils”
And what kind of duality is this? Why specifically men and women? Who conceived it and what do I find in it?
The Illusion of Self
And now, if that’s the case, do I exist? Or maybe I haven’t been born yet? Here or there. Do I exist? Mother, where are you? Answer my question: am I alive or dead? Did you give birth to me, or is it all a dream? I see only masks, I see something swiftly passing by, people, where are you going, why? Mother, if you gave birth to me, then where are you? Take me back to paradise!
“Life passes by a person so swiftly that a person futilely begs it to stop even for a moment and tell them what it wants and why it looks at them. Masks of sensations rush by, becoming increasingly distorted. ‘Joy, answer,’ the person cries, ‘why are you smiling at me? The visage disappears, smiling. ‘Sorrow, let me look into your eyes, why have you come to me?’ And sorrow is already gone. ‘Anger, why did you glance at me? I ask, and you’ve already vanished.'”
Bonaventure, “Night Vigils”
Mother, where are you?
Mother, where are you?
Mother, where are you?
Mother, where are you?
Mother, where are you?
Mother, where am I?
OM HRIM HRIM HUM HUM KRIM KRIM DAKSHINE KALIKE KRIM KRIM HUM HUM HRIM HRIM.