"Abandond Dwellings" by Vladimir Kush
8.7" x 11.8" Giclee on canvas
Edition size: 250 signed and numbered
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"Above The World" by Vladimir Kush
27 x 43 giclee on canvas
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"African Sonata" by Vladimir Kush
21 x 24 Giclee on canvas
Edition size: 325 Signed and numbered
For price and details call 1-877-844-3447 toll free
 

"African Sonata"

The trumpeting of the elephants is a sound of rejoicing that erupts with the appearance of their king, their master. The elephants call other animals and birds to celebrate, with the occasion being life itself! Voices of the creatures obedient to the challenge blend into the polyphonic oratorio of joy and exultation that swells until it resonates throughout the heavens. It is fitting that elephants should lead this symphony. When the world was young, the elephant had strength and power over all. He also embodied wisdom, longevity, loyalty, tolerance, and compassion. Sound is the path into the cosmos, where the individual timbres and voices are as important as the entire universal orchestra. In Greek tradition, a lyre made from antelope horns was the instrument of Apollo, the god of prophecy and music. Playing it, Orpheus tamed wild animals, and charmed trees and mountains. According to Hindu doctrine, when Krishna played the flute, the cosmos started to move and creation of the world began.

"Always Together" by Vladimir Kush
12.9 x 9.5 Giclee on canvas
Edition size: 325 Signed and numbered
For price and details call 1-877-844-3447 toll free
 

"Always Together" shown custom framed

"Anticipation of a Night's Shelter" by Vladimir Kush
21 x 24 Giclee on canvas
Edition size: 325 Signed and numbered
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"Arrival of the Flower Ship" by Vladimir Kush
39 x 31 Giclee on canvas
Edition size: 325 Signed and numbered
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Arrival of the Flower Ship
 

"Arrow of Time"  by Vladimir Kush         
23.6 x 11 Giclee on canvas
Edition size: 325 Signed and numbered
For price and details call 1-877-844-3447 toll free
 

The cosmological arrow of time shows that the time had its zero point, when the Big Bang occurred, and the end – the Big Crunch, when the universe and the time will disappear. However, the painting symbolically represents the changes not in natural history, but in the life of the mankind. An arrow piercing the hourglass is a vivid symbol of rapid acceleration of history in the last hundred years. Time is no longer trickling away like sand through the neck of an hourglass, but is swiftly flying forward. On its way it destroys many things we would refer to save - stability of life, confidence in the future, variety of cultures. Thus each of us should remember that all his actions, even small, can have a dramatic impact on the future. We call it the butterfly principle.

The spirit of hunting penetrates through the painting. It is the theme well familiar from the paintings of different epoch. But this time it is an unusual hunting - hunting of the small bees for a mighty tiger. Inspite of the different sizes, it is obvious that the tiger and the bee resemble each other, due to their similar striped patterns. There is a special imagery meaning to that: The bees unified by the instinct, become an unstoppable force, capable of chasing a big predator. The spiral cloud of bees is as though extended along the horizontal movement of a predator. The bent blades of the grass with the hanging bee enforce the sensation of the movement precipitancy. Linear development of the picture makes impression of the action occurring on a scene. Combination of the red and orange flashes in a picture with alternating black lines underline the dramatism of the event. The symbolism of the painting is connected with the dramatic character of the human life – the constant struggle of the person’s will and purposefulness against a “plenty of tiresome cares”, surrounding him.

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Symbol of divine revelation. On the Greek mosaic of XI century is represented Christ, holding in hands the Bible. As asserts Borges (Jorge Luis Borges. Letters of God) any book is a ramified labyrinth and, going on it, it is always possible to encounter the Book of the Books. Translucent, nacreous colors emphasize virgin purity of image of Mary holding baby Jesus, wings of the butterfly behind her personify the soul aspiring to the blue skies. Symbolism of the picture where the figure of Virgin Mary seemingly merges with the Book of Books, associates with figurativeness of the fresco "Annunciation" pictured by Italian master of Early Renaissance Fra Angelico. It represents Archangel Gabriel appearing before Maria as she was absorbed in reading the Bible - the passage in the Book of Isaiah, where was spoken about the virgin who will give birth to the son.

Constantine the Great transformed night into day with the “pillars of wax”. Thus an ancient biography says about a man who brought the light of Christianity to the Roman Empire. In the painting a woman holds the torch of the spiritual light dispersing the dark night of ignorance. Inspired by spiritual passion she turns herself to the invisible forces of cosmos controlling the elements on Earth. She prays to save and protect her home and her family, and the fertility of the earth… Generations come and go, but the lamp of life is passed from hand to hand like a baton is being passed from runner to runner.
 

The Marquise de Sade wrote volumes about his daring study of the sphere where sensual pleasures, sex, and uncontrolled desire reign. However, de Sade invented nothing; he just showed us ourselves. This is, as they say, the naked truth. For the artist there are no unsolvable mysteries, he is occupied not with moralizing, but with the quest for beauty. In nature there is no dirty spot, only we have introduced it in her. We have treated this "dirt" too superficially. - Friedrich Nietzsche The image in some way reproduces the biblical theme Susanna and the Old Men, to which artists from different epochs showed interest – such as Rembrandt, Goya, etc. The old men – here are, obviously, the books, that display a keen interest in the "woman,” who reveals to them her beauty secrets

Looking at the painting, the spectator plunges into the world of ancient gospel symbols. Central of them is fish, a holy symbol of Jesus. Early Christians used the Greek word ichthus, “fish,” as the abbreviation of the formula “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.” The crusaders appear before us in a “fish” battle array. We could recall the phalanx of Alexander the Great or the “swine” array of Vikings and German knights. Still, the shields of warriors are painted not red - the color of battle rage - but blue reflecting the peaceful blueness of sea and sky. And in banks of clouds hovering over the Sea of Galilee we could guess the airy palaces and towers of Heavenly Jerusalem

The painter draws a clear analogy between current lines and growth rings of a tree. For annual rings reflect the current of time, the timestream. Their thickness or thinness tells us much about the past. Was it the time of hurricanes or river floods, of the great heat or the great ice? A man is drawn into the stream of life. Though, knowing the past, he tries to direct the movement of his boat, the flow of time inexorably carries him away to the new shores. Whirlpools, shallows, and rough current do not leave time for thinking – so is the message underlying the picture. The cool greenish colors correspond to this mood.

The image symbolically conveys to us the feelings of happiness and beauty of the world arousing in everyone bound on a distant voyage. In Japan, the image of the butterfly has inspired the artists for hundreds of years. It is always associated with the best moments in life. Here, traditional celebrations and marches begin with “the dance of the butterfly.” Butterflies also accompany wedding ceremonies in Japan. But not all know that butterflies are the amazing and courageous travelers. In favorable winds Monarch butterflies from North America can cross the Atlantic to reach England, resting as needed on the decks of ships.

Mare nostrum – “our sea” called ancient Romans to the Mediterranean Sea. And it really has become “theirs” to the people of North and South, West and East. “Dahin!” (There!) - a great German poet Goethe exclaims in one of his poems. And, having left unresolved important issues in his native Germany, he rushes to south to take his famous journey to Italy. We see here the sun-filled shadow of all travelers. These pilgrims to the Mediterranean world will descend to Italy and Greece, the Holy Land and Egypt…

The needle is forever associated with the thread. With this said, the thread is a symbol of human destiny. Ancient Greeks believed that moiras weave the threads of life. People felt the magical power of destiny, the authority of which extends beyond that of the gods. The gods cannot change or avert that which the moiras have decided upon. Moiras cut the thread of life and continued to weave it depending on what color ball - black or white - another of the moiras would pick out of an urn. In the painting the thread of destiny is represented in two images: the golden “thread” of a caravan and the blue “thread” of the River of Life. The “thread” of a caravan as a symbol of wealth, leads us like the Ariadne’s clue to the central image of the painting – that of a camel going through the needle’s eye. A striking, paradoxical image used by Jesus to condemn riches and wealth… But we couldn’t help noting a certain humor the painter introduces here. Look, in spite of all the efforts of the cameleer a camel at the head of the caravan balks as if saying: ”I don’t want to go through a real eye of a needle!”

The painting is a hymn to the family remaining the principal element of human society. It represents the family tree as a mighty tower trunk surrounded by tiers of towers-branches. Its appearance reminds us the saying “My home is my fortress.” The trunk of the tree symbolizes the unity of the family, while its branches represent the diversity of life. The Family tree is a grown-up sprout of the Tree of Life – a mythological image known in many cultures. It originates in the idea of the great tree as the central axis of a divine energy stream. Here, the spirals of reinforcement represent this spiral movement from the bottom to the top. The family tree tower continues to grow, conveying the idea of the continuity of life. Above the door of the tree home hangs a mandala – a holy geometric composition symbolizing spiritual and cosmic order opposing confusion and disorder of the material world.

"Fauna in La Mancha"

As is known, the “madness” of Don Quixote was born from the obsessive reading of chivalry books. The world of medieval romances became to him more real than the real life. Thus from an inhabitant of the sun-scorched dusty Spanish province of La Mancha he had turned into the citizen and ruler of the boundless Empire of Imagination. Its size, perhaps, had far surpassed that of the real Spanish empire stretched across the globe and created by other great Spaniards also called “madmen” – Columbus and Cortez! The artist assumes that in this New Empire there was also a place for the fantastic butterflies with splendid wings eclipsing the fauna of Colombia, Amazonia and Venezuela! So, instead of doing a glorious battle with the evil giant windmill, Don Quixote is going to enter the duel with the giant butterflies. Certainly, having such a “weapon,” he will not catch any butterfly. But his net could seize Beauty and Grace of these and many other amazing creations. Let us follow his noble example and stretch the net of our imaginations in search for beauty!

The fiery blossom flaming like a torch guides us into the depths of time - straight to the fires of pre-historical people. Ritual dancing around the fire should have involved the favor of powerful spirits to ensure good luck in hunting and war. We see the hands of dancers rising upwards like flames, appealing to cosmic forces for help or protection. The magic fiery flower is transforming into a violent red dance. Circular movement symbolizes the motion of constellations around of the sun. The image of fiery dance has something in common with “Dance” - a famous picture of French artist Henri Matisse representing an ecstatic, circular dance of red nudes.

The powerful breath of wind brings us freedom from the heavy burden of the past, we experience a dream-like sensation of flying to the new horizons. But a swarm of people sailing into uncertainty against the crimson sky background is also a bright metaphor of the dramatic nature of our life. You guess right - the name of the painting is a paraphrase of the great novel "Gone with the Wind" in which not only people are gone forever but the entire civilization of the Old South. But we nonetheless believe that the diaspora of courageous aeronauts will fall on the rich soil and germinate giving rise to the new civilizations.

"Garden of Eden"

The Garden of Eden with its fantastic plants and trees was known to be destroyed and wiped away from the face of the earth by the ancient flood. Nobody knows if the Noah’s Ark has rescued such miraculous trees as the Tree of the Knowledge or the Tree of Life… But here the waters have receded, and the Noah’s ship has unloaded the saved part of life. Trees and flowers have settled the Earth again. And somewhere in a secluded valley of the Paradise Mountains of the East a New Eden has been born, accessible only to people with pure hearts full of love and . Among its new vegetable splendor there were gigantic grapes with a bunch big enough to load a camel, sky-blue roses, etc. But the main plant of Eden grew in a distant corner of garden in thick grass, hidden from immodest view. Its name was the True Heart. The place was veiled in a mysterious twilight, as in the first day of creation. Therein were burning two lovely red leaves-hearts, reminding that the essence of the God is Love. And when the plant was blossoming, two figures arose from the flower stalks – the New Adam and Eve.

"Garden of Eden" shown custom framed

The painting represents the genealogic tree of art of Vladimir Kush. While ascending the tree we can trace the birth and the development of his images and ideas as well as their interconnection. On the lowermost tier, cluster the sprouts - the poppy pod-cell, blossoming horn of the gramophone, heart plant with an arrow shoot. At the foot are scattered the peculiar fruits fallen from the tree: the pear-mandolin, apples ready for billiard battles. The trunk became a dwelling of the mysterious Roman emperor Nero. He invites us to sit down into a boat and opens the atlas of the Genealogic journey. Around on the branches hang, nest and blossom images of strange flowers and fruits: the dancing hibiscus, walnut house, pod with peas-oarsmen. Upper tiers are inaccessible to our sight. We only see the soul of Icarus flying up toward the sun and the arrow of time soaring through the sky.

Before appearing in a new painting sparkling with wonderful colors, the ideas of an artist need a long time to ripen in mysterious depths of his subconsciousness. The life cycle of the butterfly could serve a symbol of this transforming a vague idea into the bright image. The ugly caterpillar changes into chrysalis to emerge finally as a beautiful butterfly. This phase of “chrysalis” hidden from man’s eyes invisibly exists in the picture. At this stage, the artist filters out false figures and finds his way. He gains strength and… take-off! The painter seems to feel the tips of his fingers transforming into brush, Salvador Dali says. Then the dormant torrents of self-expression suddenly awaken, and finally break through this chrysalis-skin filling the picture with their wings of color.

Perhaps many times you have spent your weekends in the country to escape the hurried pace of life. Sprawled on the grass you stared at clouds floating across the sky. You could recognize in their pattern the sailing ships, and in the boundless blue sky - the expanse of the sea. You may have imagined sailing on a ship lit up by the sun so bright and so near to you. Or remembered your childhood on the shores of huge blue lake, when together with a friend you steered the boat to an unknown islet grown over with reed and gave it you name! “What indeed is more beautiful than heaven, which of course contains all things of beauty?” - Copernicus once exclaimed. And maybe now, watching this picture, you imagine yourself navigating the depths of this sky-ocean. The sun which appears to have settled in the ocean is shining to you. Sometimes your ship is maneuvering through cloudy labyrinths. Sometimes she is soaring or swooping down in the blue liquid, diving or rushing forward, to find again and again new cozy havens on the shores of heavenly seas.

Orchard Isles like clouds slowly float in the golden air above the green hills and blue waters. Their image awakes in memory the blossoming isles of Aztec Tenochtitlan – capital city of ancient Mexica. We see in the picture a miraculous flying ladder. Flying gatherers of the heavy Eden harvest are skillfully moving the ladder striding as on stilts from one Paradise crone to another filling the baskets with ripe fruits. Maybe such a ladder appeared in the old days to the dreamer Jacob… “And the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.” What did Jacob see in his dream? The Scriptures say he "saw a ladder resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it." In his dream, Jacob saw a ladder. The ladder which Jacob beheld was an unusual ladder, a very tall ladder, reaching from earth to heaven and entering the presence of God! And on this ladder, ascending and descending, are the angels of God. with angels going up and down form heaven Thus, God appeared to Jacob in a dream and promised the same thing He had ... In his dream, Jacob saw a ladder. The ladder which Jacob beheld was an unusual .. The paradise fruits have ripened, Filled with unearthly nectar. Time for harvesting has approached On Orchard Isles of Heaven For people who toiled on Earth.

Garden or field blossoms swaying in the breeze remind us the dancing flowers. This beautiful image appears in the famous Waltz of the Flowers in the fairy ballet Nutcracker of the celebrated Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky. However, the picture represents not a waltz but rather a fiery whirling dance, possibly flamenco, with its rapid turns and stops. Red color of the dancer’s dress symbolizes passion and love. With a gorgeous gesture she draws the curtains inviting us to enter into the mysterious twilight. Turning into Fairy Queen, she would lead us into the hidden woodland to join the fairies dancing in a ring. The dancer’s flower is Hibiscus, the rose of Hawaii.

The horn resembles the Tower of Babel- a symbol of human arrogance. According to the Bible, the people conceived the idea of constructing a tower high enough to reach heaven (or, possibly, to conquer it). Thus they wanted to put themselves at the same level as God and were punished for it. The Lord deprived them of their common language, and they could no longer understand each other. The heritage of the collapsed Tower is a lot of people who don’t understand each other and aren’t inclined to come to an understanding. Using biblical legend, the artist develops his own artistic concept. His Babel horn of plenty is a creating rather than a destroying structure. It spills out on the coast over other, more modest buildings- one- storied. But people living in “horizontal” communities are known to be much more disposed to communicate among themselves and understand each other than the residents of the “vertical” apartment towers. Thus the horn of Babel becomes a symbol of prosperity created by the post-Babel, newly limited mankind populating new shores!

The myth of Icarus, as told by Ovid in his Metamorphosae, has become a symbol of the folly of bold egotism with its tale of an ordinary person daring to approach the sun. The ancient Greek myth tells of the master builder Daedalus who, together with his son Icarus, sought to escape King Minos, with whom he had fallen from favour. Equipped with wings they made from feathers and wax, father and son flew above the Aegean Sea. Icarus grew intoxicated with flight, and despite entreaties from his father, approached the sun too closely. Heat from the sun melted the wax, and Icarus fell to the sea. The bird feather left on the marble is the evidence of that event. The butterfly in the painting is the soul of Icarus. Just as a butterfly approaches fire too closely only to burn its wings, it mirrors the myth of doomed Icarus. Only a deserving person can possess wings. The wings of the artist are his creativity, and he has to gain the altitude that he deserves. (See also, Hic Saltus.) Everything is ordinary in the world Just as everything is unusual Truth may have two meanings Or even three The fruit, ripened and juicy, Having surrendered to gravity’s law, Reveals the image of brave Icarus Who tied wings to himself And jumped from a cliff toward the sun Flying across the sky Like a god.

The grand scheme of the world and the definition of its architecture, geometry, and aesthetics is the result of Divine Wisdom. To comprehend his intentions Man invents models. Great Leonardo da Vinci supposed that constructing his mechanical models he could go beyond the capabilities of human mind and solve the mysteries of the Creator. To comprehend the mystery of flight, for example, he made from wax paste small models of birds capable to fly in the air. But whatever models Man may conjure up, he does this for the reverence of his Creator and for releasing the Creator’s wisdom. Only from this intentions does one build the Koln Cathedral and not a factory. Only through such reasoning will mankind paint a picture of the universe from the microcosm to the macrocosm.

A heart pierced by an arrow of Eros or Amour is a key symbol of love. In art, this is a theme of the Renaissance, which became a theme for St. Valentine’s Day. In ancient Greece, the Eros cult stood for a powerful force that attracts one living creature to another, and therefore all things living are born, and the human race lives on. Later on, artists and poets recognized Venus and Mars as Eros’s parents. Amour was depicted as a plump, winged boy with a bow and a quiver of arrows. Raphael illustrated Amour riding a carriage pulled by butterflies and swans in his paintings. Poets and writers often speak of Amour’s cruelty, as he permanently wounds people and forces them to commit unwise acts. Often times, Amour, as if blind, sends his arrows flying in random directions, which is why poets say that love is blind. The artist significantly softened the blows dealt to hearts by the cheerful joker by planting an arrow in a pot, much as a gardener would. My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please. (William Shakespeare) Universal symbols of love, The arrow and heart are living beings Mutually growing as one intertwined New life sprouting from the union.

It seems that the thoughts of two lovers concentrated and materialized into the shape of an aggregation of plasma, uplifting the two to the top of the hill. They can now fully enjoy all of the magical colors of dawn. A night whose stars refused to run their course? A night of those which seem outworn, Like Resurrection Day, of longsome length To him that watched and waited for the morn. (Richard Burton) The third delight is joy when you are loved, And always having someone who is near. We are connected by one word as if I had your blood. With you, I can fly over the greatest cliff of fear. (Valery Briusov) Cliff to cliff, the silence of the desert Surrounds us The day calms We are hand in hand, And only the images of mutable fantasies Hang in the sky, like clouds.

God: perfect being. He is eternity, and He is always creating. In the words of Bernard Shaw, “God is in the making.” In Herbert Wells’ Eternal Fire, God works in a laboratory that is poorly equipped. He complains that He has to struggle with unyielding material. This material is evil itself, which needs to be reduced. If we are intelligent and talented, we help God to create. In this case, we feel that est deus in nobis —there is God in ourselves”). In an artist’s imagination, God is not unwilling to do ordinary jobs. In the artist’s depiction, God, climbing a ladder and dressed in a work robe, oils the gears to enable the advance of time on the world’s clock. According to the Bible, “What is a second to God is a millennium to Man.” The unstoppable motion of time and the cyclic nature of birth and death are associated with the sprouting of the new from the ruins of the old. The beating of the human heart is forever connected To the ticking of the celestial clock, First wound by the master of the universe To maintain harmony and perfection in all He created. In the simple robe of a watchmaker, He moved the hands of the clock To start the new-born millennium. All the Creator’s children look joyfully To the beginning of each epoch When the rays of the sun shine like a golden pendulum Through the haze of time, beyond To the blue firmament of the future.

The passionate ardor of pianist “inspires” the instrument, the folds of curtain, and figures of spectators, creating a sensation of imminent takeoff. The music reaches its peak emphasized by the solemn red coloring of the painting. Its streams soar to the concave mirror of the moon, and, focused by it, return to the scene. The reflected flow carries the magical energy of the moon, causing mysterious transformations all around. We see as the spectators are shrouding themselves in spectral cocoons, or acquiring something like butterfly wings. The play of light patches on the piano and glimmering reflections on the curtain create a unique sensation of a butterfly fluttering its wings.

“Two things fill my soul...with wonderment...and joy: the starry sky above me, and the moral fibre inside of me. (Immanuel Kant) Since ancient times, the sky never has ceased to amaze us. We are looking at the moon and unexpectedly discover that it is as if we looked into a deep, dark well! Maybe we just glimpsed the dark side of the moon, which is ordinarily beyond the reach of our eye? Channelling mankind’s collective stream of consciousness, you might recall the predictions of an old star tracker. He thought that the hidden side of the moon was concave. Extrapolating from that, he concluded that one day, heavenly forces would turn the moon around its axis, and its light, as if focused through a magnifying glass, would burn the earth. But the moon is rather an abandoned dwelling. As a Russian poet wrote, Looking at night...the moon in the heads, as the empty square: without the fountain. But made from the same stone. (Josef Brodsky) We want to believe that we are not alone in the universe... The night is deep. On the dark horizon The constellations arise. The face of the horse is beautiful and light His gaze is directed toward distant worlds Where perhaps herds of horses just like him Graze in freedom.

A blossom opening its petals embodies the blooming Jove of the bud pair of lovers. The warm shining of love coming from it blesses and animates the mountains and valley, river, meadows, and trees... We see life and nature drawing closer together and imitating each other. Outlines of the mountain amphitheater repeat the form of the flower calyx, human figures merge into the petals of the bud. Soft pastel shades of the painting evoke dreams of dolce far niente - blissful idleness amid landscape strikingly similar to Italian. Skilful combination of fore - and background transforms the Morning Blossom into monumental image resembling a living sculpture rising in front of the mountain architecture.

"Morning Blossom" shown custom framed

"Entering the arches of the wood we bear its voices; singing birds, murmuring trees, the rustle of grass, knocking sound a woodpecker makes... Strolling through the woods, the famous king of waltz Johann Strauss “overheard” this music and inspired by it composed his famous Tales from the Vienna Woods. Contemplation of wonderful landscapes, dreamy mood created the musical images of the fascinating piece. Perhaps just this melody is playing now an ancient gramophone hidden in a wood corner. This and many other tunes are said to have been recorded by tree elves for a small wood festival. Behind the trees and bushes, unseen to us, have settled down and are enjoying the music the wood spirits - Apple - Tree Men, Oakmen, wood goblins and other tribes… Using smooth transitions, the artist combines the tints of the painting - from carmine till blue - into one festive motif of wood symphony

"Ocean Sprouts" shown custom framed

In art, the poppy plant is an emblem of the gods of sleep (Hypnos), of dreams (Morpheus), and allegory of Night. This symbolism is founded on the poppy’s properties. It used to grow as a wildflower in Greece and has been used for herbal tincture since ancient times. The idea of this painting is connected with another picture of the artist called Walnut of Eden. While the latter reflects the state of paradise for Man, Opium Lovers reflects the state of Man after the fall into sin. This is the French poet Charles Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil, sprouted on the field of world disharmony. All the world illnesses first affect art. “There is the beauty, unknown to the ancient people,” Baudelaire wrote. What is this beauty? It is a human as he is, with all his good and evil. This is the world of his dreams and visions. Other artists have expressed similar themes: for example Picasso’s Absent Lover is absolutely detached from the outside world and submerged into the world of her own reveries

 The pale sparkle of a pearl is associated with a full moon, while its marine roots are associated with fruitfulness. The development inside the clamshell, which is obscured from our eyes, is associated with the miracle of birth. According to ancient mythology, the goddess of love, Aphrodite (Venus, in Roman mythology), born of sea foam, wore a pearl. According to legend, Cleopatra dissolved a pearl from one of her earrings in wine and drank it in front of Mark Anthony as a display of her wealth and love for him. A partially opened clamshell is a symbol of female sexuality, the source of life. Away from human eyes and under the depth of the sea The secret fruit is preserved, beautiful and divine It grows at nights, when everything is sleeping And only the moonlight, lying on the ocean in a path, Penetrates the lip of the shell like silver rain. Human thought languishes in the darkness Speechless and powerless, contained in the folds of a clam. When a clear voice is heard from the heavens The fetters will suddenly fall and the dungeon will open Releasing the light of truth to reign over the world

"Pearl" shown custom framed

The artist uses motives of the Cinderella fairy tale, a girl who lost her crystal shoe at the ball and the prince who fell in love with her. We discover here as well an interest to symbolism and allegory, particularly found in texts of medieval alchemy. We know alchemists tried to transform base metals into gold. But in fact transformation of a poor girl to a fine princess is also a kind of alchemical manipulation, “transmutation” of "cinders" into gold. The picture represents the arrival of Princess Cinderella – a fair-haired beauty of the North - to her groom. His carriage is just about to arrive. Princess and her retinue are walking in the shining beauty of nature. The wind welcomes her filling her veil and transforming it into a shoe - a symbol of Cinderella’s destiny. The sky is filled with alternating stripes of rays and rain and the fanciful game of clouds. Crystal ripples sparkle and glisten in the sun. All this gives rise to a feeling of renovation, joy of the beginning a new life. Now we seem to be hearing the sounds of familiar music: "Here Comes the Bride"!

We see a cypress “grove” which has transformed into the majestic cathedral of Chartres. The cypress, in antiquity is a symbol of death and mourning, but with the coming of Christianity it has become a symbol of eternal life. It is in this way there is a spiritual ascent similar in the destiny of Chartres. It has risen from an ancient pagan sanctuary for druids, to a great Christian temple, considered to have the hidden communication of Heavenly Jerusalem. The idea that nature speaks in a language of art perfectly associates with words of Charles Baudelaire “Nature is a temple where living pillars sometimes emit confused words.” Symbolic representation of nature as a temple, its artistic transformation could be traced also in other images of the work. For example, we see “frozen” fountains, like glass sculptures, and a fancy purple horse.

Purse is a symbol of wealth and accumulation. But only love is the master key which opens the purse of happiness, we could say paraphrasing the words of a famous American writer. This symbolism corresponds to the color of the purse. Red means love and passion in the first place, although purses are used to have the colors of earth or gold. But we employ red also in cases when we want to emphasize the symbolism of luxury and wealth. In China, red is considered to be the color of happiness and good luck. It is the color of the wedding attire too. The artist infuses into his image a certain irony: greed and excessive accumulation of wealth could lead to the separation of lovers

"The Red Purse"shown custom framed

"Ripples in the Ocean" by Vladimir Kush
12 x 15 Giclee on canvas
Edition size: 325 Signed and numbered

"Ripples in the Ocean"

The ocean: symbol of infinity. In ancient Indian myths, the ocean was a neverending entity from which originated the earth as well as the rest of the universe. Chaotic behaviour is characteristic of the ocean — the motion with which everything began. In this way, the undulating ocean resembles our subconsciousness — the source of our creativity. Our internal sight freely hovers over this limitless ocean, but returns to the finite by the smallest of margins. “The soul calls upon one to sense the world and beckons the abstract back to within the borders of reality from its unbound journey through infinity,” wrote German dramatist and poet Friedrich von Schiller Our perception of beauty originates from the combination of a strong harmonic start and the brute strength of chaos. The darkening blueness of the ocean approaching the horizon, a distant sailboat, and a ray slipping through the ripples on the water all intensify the painting’s motif of infinity and separation from human existence. Oh, no! This is not for humans. Ignorance and visions Are troubling us. Looking on the universe, we cannot envisage Infinity of time or space — galaxies, planets, stars. Uncertainties and doubts are oppressing us... (Arthur Rimbaud) The power of white-capped seas captivates, The flight of the soul is so much like the waves! But sooner or later we return To set our feet back on earth.

The painting guides us into the magical romantic two-worldness. Narrow side streets descending to the sea, houses with red tiled roofs, a balcony and a girl in white dress standing on it… The artist depicts a real Italian town of the Age of the Renaissance, possible Verona – the native town of Shakespearean Juliette. But now we turn our eyes to a guitar standing in the foreground and an another world comes into its own – the fancy romantic world tinged with light irony. As in the weird tales of Hoffmann a thing transforms into a living creature (remember his Nutcracker) without losing its qualities as a thing. We see a musical instrument girding itself with a belt, the red color of which has something in common with red tiles of the roofs. Its neck takes the grotesque shape of a young man in profile (having a somewhat futuristic haircut). Just wait a moment and the guitar seems to begin to play touching the strings of its body...

The rotating Ferris wheel embodied in the image of mythical Phoenix bird enchants people by its powerful beauty and promise of unprecedented shows and adventures. They do not think of danger. Greedily sucks the Firebird more and more people transforming them into the prisoners of its shining tail eyes, into the captives of its charms. According to ancient myths, the fiery Phoenix dance will end in five hundred years when energy of rotation suddenly bursts into flames and only a heap of ashes remains. Then the prisoners will leave their blue eye-cells. But Phoenix is said to resurrect from ashes in all its splendor and temptation ever again attracting the human nature.

The moon has risen above the city, stars shine in heavenly height, and souls of lovers have soared for an instant above the sea. Cares of the day have remained far below...It is that marvelous sense of affinity and spiritual unity between a man and a woman which elevates the soul and allows it to fly up to the sky. Perhaps, looking at this picture you recall the words of Russian poet Boris Pasternak: “Shadows of crossed arms, of crossed legs, Of crossed destiny” Figures of lovers are interlaced forming the spiral of a shell – symbol of life. Wings usually symbolize elation, liberation from monotonous routine and commonness.

In ancient myths, star constellations were associated with animals and often with hunting. The sky, according to the beliefs of northern tribes, was a taiga of the heavens where the cosmic moose resides. The four main stars of the Big Dipper were the tracks left by the cosmic moose as it ran. The Milky Way represented tracks left behind by a hunter in pursuit of cosmic animals. In this lies the poetry of myth! Gazing at the night sky, an artist knows today that the Milky Way is a myriad of suns, similar to our own. The majority of the light emitted by these suns is too weak to be perceived by the unaided eye. The weapon of the modern star tracker is a large telescope that can capture the light of distant stars. New cosmic animals are discovered — binary star systems and pulsars. These are tens and hundreds of light years away from our solar system! “Chasing” a new star could be as exciting as hunting a rare wild animal! The dynamic figure of the star tracker, with the bright streaks of red and blue, emphasise the erratic and romantic spirit of hunting. Nature provides the hunter’s instinct So pursuit of the celestial moose renews our blood, But still more captivating is hunting for the animal That hides in the constellation of the hunting dogs

Music influences a person in a magic way getting him to seek the sources of this influence in divine. The great German astronomer Johannes Kepler who discovered the laws of planetary motion was looking for a harmony in heaven. He recorded a sheet of heavenly music (“Music of the Spheres”) based on the movement of various planets. The painter creates his own artistic world populating it with heavenly spheres playing melodies, orbiting cosmic stations “dancing” to a wonderful waltz of Johann Strauss (as Stanley Kubrick in his famous science fiction film “2001: A Space Odyssey’), etc. His artistic thought draws into its orbit some old concepts full of poetry, for example Columbus’ opinion that the Earth was pear-shaped. He affirmed that the bulging part of it represented the site of the terrestrial paradise. Based on this theory the artist creates an image of the Paradise Pear Playing Music of the Spheres before the landscape with horses. Its heavenly prototype is the harmony uttered by the movement of an imaginary pear-like planet.

"Still Life with Mandolin" shown custom framed

Then to the moment could I say Linger you now, you are so fair!” These words of a great poet could help to express a symbolical meaning of the Painting. In ancient Rome fixed time meant time, devoted to gods. Ceased during these days were all forms of human activity, connected with civilization, the course of time. These days were called feriae – or Golden Age. Its features were the absence of courts, wars, labor. Time of love, it was excluded from times and included in ever-fixed eternity and therefore was so wonderful! The artist creates a visual symbol of this Golden Age of Love – the figure of a pair of lovers reflected in a golden pendulum

"Stopped Moment" shown custom framed

The egg symbolizes the rising Sun and the beginning of life. In many myths about the creation of the world, a cosmic egg is laid by a giant bird in a formless, ancient ocean. The egg splits into two and the sky and the earth appear from the halves of it, while the sun is seen in the yolk. You can see in the picture that the newborn Sun still hasn’t taken its final shape yet. Shreds of primary matter continue to stream from the burning sphere rising over the ocean. According to Polynesian myth, the Hawaiian Islands were born from such an egg

"Sunrise by the Ocean" shown custom framed

In the outlines of rocks coming together we could see the contours of an inexorable hourglass. The upper cone is a symbol of the heavenly ocean of the future, of innumerable possibilities opening for the people sitting on the shore. The lower vessel symbolizes the past where the mists of unrealized events, dreams and desires are floating around. We see the chronons - sands of time dropping onto the bottom of the hourglass and transforming themselves into the pebbles of frozen history. The artist depicts the time of tide when the people look into the future. Streams of light and a sail appearing on the horizon promise them happiness and the fullness of life

Looking at the painting one could recognize the duality of its images and meanings.We see three vessels filled with life-giving liquid. From the central vessel, a mountain cup, rushes down a stream of water. In ancient Rome the current water was considered as sacred. The Romans associated its flow with the course of time. Here, a man and a woman thank each other for the time spent together, measured by the falling water of life. But the cup is also a symbol of wine. So, the scene could be interpreted as a ritual of offering the wine. And in wine whiles the wedding of earth and sky, wrote the great German philosopher Heidegger. Thus, the man and the woman might express gratitude to forces protecting their union. Freshly cut flower introduce in the picture a dynamic element contrasting with static background of the colonnade of glasses.

Wind and waves batter the fragile little ship, threatening to sink her. All elements seem to celebrate here their violent feast SOS! – Save Our Souls! This call for help appears to go from the ship in distress. And it will not sink! Mysterious hands folded in prayer come from the dark. Protecting the guiding light of a candle, they bring help to desperate seamen. Ship in storm is a symbol of man struggling through the turbulent sea of adversities of life; the safe harbor symbolizes the Savior.

Ancient Greeks are known to have destroyed the city of Troy by using a fatal gift - a hollow wooden horse in which a group of warriors had concealed themselves. The artist vividly conveys the idea of the destructive gift, creating the image of mighty rhinoceros - an embodiment of wild force. The beast appears before us as killing rhinomachine clad in armor, being forged by Greek armorers on a secret range. The flaming fire of forges is raging inside the monster, splashing out into the night from his eyes and nostrils. At the same time, vast expanse of savanna reminds us of more peaceful, gigantic rhinoceroses that had been grazing there in prehistoric times alongside the mastodons - elephant-like creatures with four tusks, and many other amazing animals.

The painting depicts the morning of the world. The newly born light illuminates everything around with the slightest of pink tones. It fills every space, forcing every living cell to flutter. Two essences – masculine and feminine – are united in a tiny nutshell. According to Tao religion, this is a union of yang and yin, which represents two opposites. From the force of yang comes the heavenly part of human soul, from the force yin comes its earthly part. The world fits inside a tiny nutshell microcosm, a part of the big world. According to Plato, there exists a mutual link between every person and the universe. The universe, or macrocosm, is a gigantic living organism, and the human, a microcosm, is a miniature universe. A tree is a symbol of the start and continuation of life.

Unclouded purity and clarified perception, qualities associated with mirror, have found reflection in this work of artist. The mirror “correct” the Present exposing a better image of man and women and of their union. Here, the painting returns us to a legend about “paradise lost,” natural state of nudity of the first people, Adam and Eva. This myth has received a wide embodiment in art – in a poem by Milton, an oratorio by Haydn, and frescoes by Raphael and Michelangelo. The true work of art certainly includes the dimension of time. Here, the fore-ground represents the present and the background the past (“Golden Age.”) At the same time, the background seemingly personifies the future, its dream, and eternal love.

In ancient Indian tradition, the spider fashions a web from himself to produce earth, which act as the connection between the cosmos and the earth. This brilliant guess was confirmed by modern scientific theories describing the structure of the universe as the web of cosmic strings. The universal model of the web appears also in the structure of the Internet. The stream of information- the “spider’s silk” - traveling through cosmic satellites reaches the most secluded corners of the world. The World Wide Web contains the intellectual achievements of the world. It can be graphically depicted as a huge brain or a heavenly web that hangs over the world. The spider seen in the picture carries a world time clock on its belly. A notable detail from the world of spiders: the abdomens of black widow spiders carry a coloration that resembles an hourglass.

The bottom of seas and oceans conceals a multitude of secrets of fabulous treasures lost with the sunken ships. It’s even hard to imagine how many antique Spanish galleons which transported gold treasures of the New World, sank on their way home. But a fish in a picture couldn’t reveal the secrets of hidden American gold. Clad in heavy armor of coins instead of scales, it sank to the bottom too. We see the fish lying beside a jug with precious coins covered with gold sand... Though separately these three things are used as the symbols of wealth in many cultures, taken together they are especially characteristic for the worship of wealth in Old China. One of the attributes of the Chinese god of wealth was a magic vessel capable of multiplying gold. Sea dragons - most popular personage of Chinese mythology - are said to have at the bottom the palaces full of gold and jewels.

"Wind" by Vladimir Kush
32 x 42 Giclee on canvas
Edition size: 325 Signed and numbered

"Winged Satellite" by Vladimir Kush
14 x 18 Giclee on canvas
 

"Walnut of Eden" by Vladimir Kush
6" round cast bronze sculpture
Edition size: 325 Signed and numbered

"Purse" by Vladimir Kush
9 x 12 x 5 Cast bronze sculpture
Edition size: 325 Signed and numbered
 

"Shell" by Vladimir Kush
9 x 24 x 9 Cast bronze sculpture
Edition size: 325 Signed and numbered