About
Walera’s art is a cosmic dance of complexity, born in the shadows of Soviet oppression. His canvases are windows to higher dimensions, where chaos and order intertwine in a visual symphony of freedom and imagination.
ARTIST PROFILE
1965-1967
ART COLLEGE AND THE THAW
Following the death of his mother in his infancy, Walera was taken to live with his grandmother in the tiny Belarusian village of Domantovichy. His father left him there to pursue his career as a chief constable in the Grodno criminal department. At the same time that he left Walera, he also left him with a collection of 50 large copies of Soviet Encyclopaedia’s (compulsory subscriptions for soviet officials). He spent his early childhood years reading and glancing over the pictures in these volumes. Looking at the coloured reproductions of Old Masters from Soviet Art museums inspired his love of Art. In 1955, Walera was taken to live with his father and step mother in Grodno, a medieval Belarusian town situated on the border with Poland. He began his art training at the age of 13 when he started to attend life drawing classes.
1965-1967
ART COLLEGE AND THE THAW
In 1965, Walera enrolled into the Minsk College of Art. His time at Art College coincided with the Khrushchev “thaw” ( the short-lived period of cultural liberation following Stalin’s death). Walera was 5 years old when the “thaw” started, a period of limited political and cultural liberalization between the 1950’s and 1960’s. However, Stalin ideology still held a very firm grip over the state. Stalin had ordered the abolition of all artist groups in 1932. Following this, state control was established through the formation of a single union of artists which controlled every artist in the Soviet Union.
During this Thaw, there was a slight liberation in terms of freedom of information in the media, arts and literature. For example, in 1956, a Picasso exhibition was held in the museum of fine arts in Moscow and in 1957, the USSR hosted an exhibition of 4000 contemporary works of international artists. Some of the works of the original Russian Avant- Garde movement were being also recovered. For example, art from the artists Mark Chagall and Kazimir Malevich working in the Belarusian town Vitebsk were seen by the public for the first time.
EXPULSION FROM ART COLLEGE
The only way for artists to see each other’s art if it wasn’t accepted by USSR officials was to make secret trips to each other’s underground studios. These journeys could be very dangerous not only politically but physically too. Running away from conductors by running on train roofs and sleeping rough to save money during the trip was not uncommon. He would visit the studios of underground artists such as Celkov, Rabin and Yankelevsky in Moscow and Leningrad. The administration of the Art College was extremely suspicious of new Western Art and discouraged students to attend “unlawful” exhibitions. When they learned that Walera have visited one, they expelled him under the grounds of “a student professionally unfit for Art”.
1967-1972
ART UNIVERSITY
In 1967, Walera won a scholarship to study Public Art in the State Institute of Fine Art and Drama in Minsk (БГТХИ) However, after seeing his art at the first student’s show, professors were unhappy with the fact that Walera was experimenting with Western abstract styles.. Due to this, Walera lost his scholarship which was his only source of living at the time. This resulted in him having a nervous breakdown due to stress and starvation, resulting in him spending nearly a year in hospital. Despite this, he managed to complete the course in 1972 by submitting a piece of work in accordance with state guidelines. He then started his career as a muralist with a state public art company. The fact that he studied art and began his career during the Brezhnev regime has had a profound influence on his work. This is because the state provided him with very thorough training in order for him to be able to draw state approved art to their high standard. His training includes but is not limited to classical painting, accurate draughtsmanship and the rules of perspective.
Early art works
Walera used this training to help him develop his own style of painting away from the confines of socialist realism. He now considers himself an abstract artist continuing Avant Garde traditions.
1972-1987
JOURNEY INTO UNDERGROUND
After his at the Belarusian State Academy of Arts and his days of work at the state public art company, he would go home to work on his own secret underground works which he would hide from the state. He began work on a series of large paintings during this period, the first of which “Provocation” was completed in 1979. The non-propaganda art he saw during ‘the Thaw’, helped him to develop his own artistic style. This was formed during his underground painting sessions during the 60’s and 70’s. During the underground period between 1967-1987, he was forbidden to exhibit his own works. His visit of Oleg Celcov’s studio influenced him to start painting large compositions. “The monumental scale of my paintings was defined by the very simple fact that we underground artists, couldn’t even imagine exhibiting our works in Minsk at the time. In absence of public opinion, foreign press, diplomats, tourists and heavy presence of secret police and their informers in every artistic group it could be suicidal to reveal what are we secretly painting. So that my art was pure art for myself- Art for the Art’s sake. My ivory tower.” It was clear to him that conspiracy was the only solution to survive as an artist in Minsk. He made his studio in Minsk a meeting point for young, urban creative people: artists, philosophers, poets, physicists and musicians.
VISITING UNDERGROUND ARTISTS IN MOSCOV AND LENINGRAD
Underground artists in the USSR had no chance to show their art neither in galleries nor in art magazines. The very first attempt to show underground art to the public in 1974 had ended dramatically – the exhibition of underground artists in the Moscow’s park was bulldozed by authorities. Everyone in the artistic underground world had been working in secrecy and the only way to see other underground artists artworks was by visiting their studios through recommendations of close friends. In the 70’s, Walera visited the studios of Moscow’s artists including Yankelevsky, Tselkov, Rabin, Zverev and others.
From the interview with Anela Twitchin (Art historian)
A.Twitchin –Can you compare the situation for underground artists in Minsk with the situation in Moscow at that time?
W.Martynchik –In Belarus it was much deeper underground existence. There were some diplomats, journalists and collectors in Moscow and Leningrad. They could visit studios, purchase art works or even organise some apartment exhibitions. Minsk was a city closed for foreigners and the secret police controlled everything. They had considered any unofficial artistic activity as unlawful and dangerous for the totalitarian state. This explains why Belarusian underground artists are usually not present in recent exhibitions showing the history of the Soviet Underground Art
DEVELOPING OWN STYLE
ADDING VOLUME
The “Additional element” theory which K. Malevich taught in Vitebsk was important for developing Walera’s own style in painting. By an additional element Malevich understood new structural, formative principles which arises in the process of artistic development.
“For decades flatness dominated abstract Art of the 20th century. Pretending to be a computer and playing with 3-D, I wanted to add some volume to Kandinsky’s forms and shapes and to the spots and splashes of Pollock’s works. I did it and my curiosity has been rewarded with unexpected, growing, chaotic, self-developing structures which demanded a certain level of complexity before coming to the state of balance” W.M.
VISUALING THE HIGHER DIMENSIONS
COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS
As an additional element it was the synthesis of diverse influences absorbed from Walera’s particular cultural experience: From esoteric philosophy of C.H.Hinton to Dynamic Supremacism of K. Malevich and from Analytical Art of Pavel Filonov to Digital Art.
THE COMPUTER ART
“Also my interest in complex visual structures coincided in 70th with the development of new digital technologies. It was a shocking, brainstorming and provoking piece of news for me. I have immediately realised that this will be a future for visual Art. I had no computer at that time but I could certainly pretend to be a computer. I still do not use a computer to produce art works. I am computer myself” W.M
THE GAME
The “Glass Bead Game” by German novelist Hermann Hesse, was a major inspiring provocation. The sound of those scattered beads, their kaleidoscopic combination of shapes and forms became for me a visual translation of the Conceptual Game which integrates all Fields of Human and Cosmic Knowledge through forms of Organic Symbolism. W.M
THE PLAY
Combinatory Play, (as defined by A. Einstein in 1945) seems to be the essential feature in productive thought”.
”Combinatory Play is an extraordinary method to generate ideas. It allows one to reshape and reconstruct. To fragment and to transform. Combining ideas dramatically increases the complexity of a system and changes our perception and nature of interactions. Endless dynamics, new combinations for new futuristic possibilities” W.M.
THE DIVINE
Intuition, Curiosity and Metaphysical ambitions brought me to the conclusion that Art and philosophy could express the same content- the Divine. After the Cosmology of the Avant-Garde, the only logical way to add my contribution was Cosmogony- to look out of the other side of physical reality” W.M.
ESCAPE INTO COMPLEXITY
Dynamic Balance in the Dynamic labyrinth
One day the visitor in my studio, a nuclear physicist, exclaimed: “Wow! Your compositions are the illustration of the Second Law of Thermodynamics”. He introduced me to the concept of entropy which can be interpreted as the amount of disorder the system contains. In the isolated system (the surface of the canvas in my case) entropy continues to grow until it reaches its maximum level at what it called thermodynamic equilibrium. Interestingly, this explains the fact that my compositions cannot be considered finished until they reach the equilibrium state , or maybe I can call it Dynamic Balance in the Dynamic Labyrinth” W.M
ZONES
“He called his first large compositions Zones. He had been working on them deep underground for years knowing that he will never be able to exhibit them. Zone within Soviet vocabulary stood for the prison camp. But those vast canvas zones were place where he could liberate and organise his own creative vision. They are expressions of internal freedom as opposed to external constrains…
(Anela Twitchin, Art historian)
PERESTROIKA PERIOD
The new Soviet political thaw in the 80s was named Perestroika – reconstruction in Russian. The process of decentralization of political power, which started from the very top of the Kremlin hierarchy, granted underground artists permission to exhibit whatever they wanted and whoever they were.
Perestroika means Reconstruction.
FORMA
Forma was a group of Underground artists in Belarus formed in 1987. Walera Martynchik was an organizer and the curator of the group.
“I have suggested to name the group ‘Forma’ in protest to the tradition of calling underground artists ‘formalists’.” – W.M.
The consequences of Perestroika, the political movement of reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, enabled him to start exhibiting. He took an active part in the liberation by organizing and curating a group of non-conformist Belorussian artists known as “Forma”. They held exhibitions in Minsk, Tallinn and Moscow. He is thought of as one of the leading figures of both the Soviet and Belarusian Underground Movement. – A.T.
IMMIGRATION TO LONDON-1990
After the fall of the iron curtain in 1989, he fled to Poland in order to be in a ‘free country.’ Shortly after, he immigrated to London where he now lives and works. His paintings can be found in public and private collections around the world.
From the interview with curator of Russian State Tretyakov Gallery Masha Shashkina. “Decorativnoie Iskusstvo” Art magazine, Moscow, 1989.
M. Shashkina: Are you seriously believing that your art is futuristic?
W. Martynchik: At least I work with the idea that good art should produce new visual ideas for future generations.
M. Shashkina: Can you be more detailed?
W. Martynchik: Well… Everything is on the level of intuition. I believe in the importance of intuition. Yes, I do believe that I am taking part in laying the foundation for something new. But bricks of my foundation can be colored, stripy, spotted, twisted or soft…
Reconstruction of Heaven
Oil on canvas, 200 cm x 220 cm