When I completed the drawing Seething Absence, its resemblance to another work made many years ago, The Eye (2003), became obvious to me.
The first thing I noticed was the mirrored arrangement of the compositions. But more on that later. First, each work on its own.
The Eye (2003)
This monochrome, black-and-white drawing depicts a flowering plant. The bud has opened, and from it an eye peers out, examining its own root system. A Russian saying comes to mind, “look into the root,” meaning “get to the heart of things.” In this work it is rendered literally and seems to signify an attempt to see one’s own essence; in other words, to “find one’s own beginning,” or to answer the question “what is the cause of me?” Posing such a question and sinking into deep reflection came naturally at my age in 2003: I was only 19.
Interestingly, the drawing turned out to be a kind of premonition of what followed in my life. Six months after making it, I had to move far away to another city, as an adult, independent unit. The move completely changed my familiar way of life and my surroundings. It led me to discover my own sense of being “uprooted” and “de-energized,” but it also gave me the chance to start from a clean slate, to become that very “beginning” and “cause” of my own story. This reading resembles an attempt to answer a question posed from within through events from without. Yet it would be more accurate to describe it as the question of one’s own beginning becoming more urgent through life-changing events.
So, The Eye. The plant with its eye-flower is set against a black background. There are few white areas; they seem to win and hold their ground against the gloomy surroundings, forming a sharp contrast that heightens the drama of the scene. The central and brightest point is the eye, as if, having broken through the darkness, it has finally opened and seen before it something extraordinary. The drawing captures the moment of astonishment, when the flower has not yet understood what is in front of it but has already half-guessed.
Technically, The Eye is built from patch and line. The continuous contour of the plant conveys the closed composition of the stem, whose ends meet and join in the flower’s gaze upon its own root. Clearly, what the viewer sees is a ring, around whose circular path the gaze wanders. And there is no way out: the whole drawing is confined strictly within the borders of the sheet. It presses against the edges, creating a sense of confinement and hopelessness. The answer to the question of one’s own beginning is never found. Instead, a deceptive idea of an answer (the root) arises, which in turn gives rise to an illusion of a higher order: that of one’s own wholeness. This, it seems, is how walking in circles begins, the closed circle of reflection, which might be called the “small circle,” as opposed to Nietzsche’s eternal return.
Seething Absence
The new work, Seething Absence, displays an entirely different structure. As I mentioned, its composition is like a mirror image of The Eye, that is, its opposite. What appears on the paper is not a plant but something resembling one: the botanical form serves as a metaphor for another idea, a gaze upon the absence of one’s own beginning. The composition does not fit entirely on the sheet but extends beyond its borders, creating a sense of movement and duration.
The technique is stippling. It is dynamic, full of air and rhythm, which contributes to an overall sense of lightness and softness. The dots also create a foam-like effect on the image, supporting the idea of seething as a process of transitionfrom one state to another. This points to the work as a whole as a depiction of the boundary between non-being and being, a boundary that pulsates.
Overall, the drawing is low in contrast. It is calm and measured, without sharp shifts or fluctuations in tone or compositional detail. Nothing shouts or pushes to the foreground. The seething of many small elements within the oval contour, resting as if in a cradle, seems to happen on its own, without effort or drama.
This drawing is abstract. Instead of a literal eye, the centre of the image holds its metaphor: the eye now does not merely look but sees absence where its beginning should be. This is a rupture, an opening of the ring depicted earlier in The Eye. The discovery of absence brings with it one’s own extension into infinity, represented as a multitude of possibilities and probabilities of anything whatsoever, in the form of countless small round elements. There is no wholeness here, only seething potentiality.