Arts : Photography : Evgeny Grinevich
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S. Pukhachjov
"PERUVIAN MINARETS"

Each man was once a child. Each child was indignant to the severe rules of spelling, fairly assuming, that "ourange" tastes better than an orange. Each child was convinced of the converse, resulting as an example those ordinary history lessons about "To execute - is impossible - to obtain mercy"; and of the question, whether the small person saw a land flowing with milk and honey? And the once wonderful world of funny "poor"-pupil Perestukin, with the ease of a wizard hanging bread on trees, has grown dull. The adult life fast thrust a titmouse in our hands, which a long time ago has turned from God's creature into the endlessly pecking representative of a sort, group and class.
However, there are people who continue to insist that everything in this world has an immortal soul, humanized, if you want. Enough to put a point, not in a usual place, but higher by millimetre, and it begins to live by another, completely independent, life. Just look narrowly, and you will remark that a cucumber actually, absolutely, is not a cucumber, but an atmospheric phenomenon. And it is possible, if you certainly want it, to see in swallows eyes sad human eyes, and it is because the autumn has come. And all these are not the childhood of a naive artist, but a "fairy tale about the childhood of Mankind".
"It's fairy tale", - says the author of small pictures. And then adds, that he does not see any difference between a fairy tale and life. And the matter is not at all an assumption of grammatical errors, they are - special, in order that everything looks more similar to the truth. All life learns to understand the language of children, as far as their words are more exact and brighter than ours.
The adult artists call it "Returning to the Golden Age" - back to the primitive. Is it possible to agree with this interpretation? And does the author consider himself as a representative of this genre?
"Sometimes I would like to play in a children's game. And it's all because it's always necessary to play clever games, to study rules, to display tactics…" Well, the game, let's be the game. The main thing is to try to not think of the game while playing it. But not to overlook the fact that actually everything is very serious.
European modern artists have always inclined toward an image of art that is not "bent out of shape" by civilisation. So, the finest movements of the master's paintbrush frequently coincided with the cosmic incoherence of naive language of autodidacts. Even secretly, how many artists do learn from the self-taught? Any artist knows. Gauguin in this sense is next to Grandma Moses, Malevich - to Bambua, Picasso - with an African mask, and Pirosmani or "Dounanier" Rousseau telling the world about his own secret fate, about the latent juices of Pasternak's "layers of common living". One of the signs of postmodernist consciousness is the merging of so-called "high" and "low" genres. There is even the formula: "postmodernism = avant-garde + mass art". But who understands exactly who or what is "mass" art?
Eugene Grinevich, as a professional artist, practices many art forms, but at the base of all is simply "independent. intuition" . This is his main guide, and kindness and joy his eternal themes. Also, it is completely unnecessary to remain a child forever in order to use the right to speak about simple things. The artist is not afraid to look old-fashioned, or expressly naive. He has selected wood and watercolours as materials absolutely without accident - this was the way of earlier times. Easel painting began from it. Wooden surfaces made by his hands, translucent backgrounds, these are, in a direct sense, parts of the art product. Grinevich has managed, as a craftsman, to introduce many technological devices, and has studied applicaitn of techniques for a long time.
"New little sandals? It's a pleasure, which all of us felt at least once in childhood. And Mara is my cat, I frequently paint her. As she pulls down a fish from table, as she licks kittens. Because I love her. And the world is filled with wonderful fruits growing on wonderful trees, under which we go for a walk together, and around us are people of every description! Both mermaids and human-beasts, and angels, and evil. In my world there is a place "Peruvian Minarets" and "Earth Paradise". My favourite person, or simply a clown is always closest to me. I paint my friends. I draw down their names. You say that my world is about not working too much, that everything just grows on trees in it! So it is not too carnal as well. People - they are generally good, beautiful and kind. Just by virtue of different circumstances, they should decide, "to execute, or to give mercy", "to be or not to be", "what to do" - and so it is already a fairy tale, is it not, at all".
"Dvornik" in this world is the strong person. He is mighty and monumental. And this world is loving, erotic, but not sexual. Signs of gender - only signs as well as many people. People are hyphens, commas of existence, ceremoniously taking places on the tree of the world. Commas, deciding, to execute or to give mercy, removing contradictions and pains of the "adult world" just by the phenomenon of themselves. If we trustfully, like prodigal sons, follow the artist, in first finding our Peruvian minaret, you'll see there is something to pray and something to think about.