Each painting can be read and interpreted. Interesting is that often I don't have my own interpretation of a painting I create till the very last brush stroke I put on canvas for that painting.
The same was happening also with "Broken Values". The canvas was so alive and the paint on it has been moved quite a bit so that it started as a dual portrait and it ended with splits, wounds and smudges.
Broken Values / Valori Spezzati by Dimitri Ross – Florence, Italy – April 2024
The "Broken Values"/"Valori Spezzati" is my recent painting. And as almost every painting it unconsciously reflects my inner state of mind. So, what does it mean and why such a difficult name for a painting of a handsome man?
Well, first of all, yes, it is one person. The same face. You might not have noticed but this painting is a continuation of my search for identity in the dual portraiture. There were "A Girl with a Blue Turban" and my "Rain Girl".
The first idea was to cover the naked bodies with a leopard skin and to make two celibate monks look out the window of their hermit's abode. But no. The paint was still fresh, alive and moving. The leopard skin was gone and berries and blue flowers appeared in its place. The berries of Khokhloma and the flowers of Gzhel...
What are Khokhloma and Gzhel?
Well, Khokhloma or Khokhloma painting is a style of Russian traditional painting on wooden household items. Usually, there are red berries and golden flowers on a black wooden surface.
Gzhel is another Russian traditional technique of blue symbolic floral paintings but this painting is done on white ceramic surfaces.
Of course, there are many others traditional Russian painting techniques but these two are very representative.
If you ask me, these two – Khokhloma and Gzhel – are the very symbol of Russian traditional values. It can't get more Russian than this!
In the lingering political turmoil these values don't seem to be relevant anymore. As the matter of the fact, each war breaks the rules, destroys the trust, demolishes the values. I probably can't explain it really but many values changed their emotional coloration – going backwards from a photo to film negatives (if you still know what it is).
These are my broken values. A rich but now split culture. Now I see that this dual portrait – two faces of one person – fits perfectly in this image. I hope that this painting will raise many questions, maybe these questions don't have an answer...
Is this person (he? they?) looking out the window of a hermit's abode in Florence? Or is it an airplane window and they are on the run? And why are the faces scarred? And why are they stripped and their heads shaved? Are these bullet holes on men's chests?
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PS: I thank you my amazing model for posing and for trusting my artistic interpretation! Of course, my model has absolutely nothing to do with my broken values or any other brokenness for that matter.