The unstoppable flight of time. The flow of events, the tension, our everyday life is increasingly like an action movie.

Every day is like a blank sheet for an artist.

The current of light. The life-giving energy of inspiration.

The white salt of daily labor.

New works of Vladimir Starikov on display in the Municipal Gallery of Kharkiv somehow resemble the old postal stations on the endless path of life: you can stop, take a breath, look around, give your horses a rest.

Refined collages, reserved and perfect, full of deep meaning, yet without any pathos. They are not “flirting” with the viewer. These works are first of all for oneself. Michel Montaigne in his “Essays” mentioned an artist who was asked why he did things that few people understood. He answered: “It’s enough for me when there are two of them, or one. It’s enough for me if there’s no one.” Such bold selfishness of an artist is similar to asceticism. It’s a conscious choice of loneliness.

However, who knows? What if it creates an opportunity for another, additional life in the new world which you yourself created?

Anyone can immerse themselves into this world. The quiet glow of collages, abstract and figurative, full of allusions and hints. Sometimes the perfection of a plastic idea approaches almost a symbol, a sign, a seal of time. It’s a hint, a seed from which rapidly grows a mighty tree of thought, mysterious sense, and insight. These works perhaps appeal to the most intimate and secret things each of us harbors in the depths of our souls.

Another remark is in place: the exposition is absolutely environmentally friendly. There is nothing chemical here at all (in any sense). The materials used are old newspapers, wrapping paper, drug instructions that are now added to any box of pills, leftover advertising pamphlets, and gauze. Only natural dyes were used: tea, coffee, iodine tincture.

Vladimir Starikov has been a member of the Ukrainian Union of Artists since 1995. He took part in many international, foreign and all-Ukrainian exhibitions and art projects, and had a dozen of personal exhibitions. His works are kept in museums and private collections in Ukraine, Germany, Israel, Italy, and the USA (the Zimmerli Art Museum).

For more than a quarter of a century, Starikov taught special disciplines at the Kharkov Art School. Now his former students are working in many parts of the world, one could study geography by their letters, which come from places like Denmark or Japan. This is how the streams of the Kharkov Art School run, whose walls are decorated with the names of many original masters. Vladimir Starikov is among them.

(Nina Vinogradova)