Artospective: Dark Surrealism Paintings by Paul Yunin.

Soulmates 87x61cm (34x24in) Oil, hardboard.

An Interview with Paul Yunin.

Who and where are you from?

Paul Yunin, a painter from Russia, working in St. Petersburg.

What brought you to Art?

By education I am an engineer. I was brought to art by the love for the muse about 5-6 years ago. But I was completely immersed in painting only in 2016. The creative half won engineering in me. I originally started working in interior painting, painted on demand, but then realized that I was closer to being an artist rather than a craftsman.

What is your driving force?

I have a desire to talk to the audience, I have something to say. Also, I have a need for experiment and a search for new ways of expressing an idea. Starting my work, I do not know what I will end up with. I direct the brush that gives birth to images on the canvas which my subconscious suggests to me. The inspiration for the plots is my relationships with people, nature, maybe even with God and also with other forms of art.

I prefer Renaissance artists: Leonardo Da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, etc. When painting my work, I mostly use the scumble technique of painting. It unites me with Renaissance artists, with symbolism and some mysticism of their artworks. It is worth noting such kings of dark art as Zidzislav Beckinsky and Hans Rudy Giger. If we talk about cinema, the works of Trier, Kubrick, Tarkovsky and other directors, similar in spirit are close to me.

What kind of work you do and why?

I paint in the genre of dark surrealism. But I'm not trying to stay within the frames of the genre. Rather, on the contrary, I am trying to avoid stamps that have developed in different kinds of dark styles of world art. I don’t have a goal to depict a horror story, cause anxiety in the viewer.

Tell us more about your thought process.

At the beginning of my work, I'm tuning in to the wave of maximum openness of soul and sincerity. I trying to paint my surreal artworks truly, as Friedrich Nietzsche had said "writing with own blood". My task is to convey the light and darkness of my own experiences, feelings, thoughts as accurately as possible with the help of non-verbal images, and if I may say so - of the archetypes. I don’t write extramundane worlds. I paint what is here and now, trying to pack the prose of reality into a bright poetic form. Behind the gloomy atmosphere of my works there are hidden the revelations of the subconscious, deep, perhaps vulnerable sensuality, religious mysticism and even lyricism. Behind thorn spikes, suffering of heroes and unearthly matters there is spiritual nakedness, liberation from the burdensome conventions of the surrounding world and striving for truth, at all cost, whether it is pleasant or cruel.

Please share with us the one modern artist whose work you find Interesting and why?

Alexander Kostetsky (Russ. Александр Владимирович Костецкий, Ukr.Олександр Володимирович Костецький;, November 14, 1954 in Kiev – January 4, 2010 in Kiev) was a Ukrainian painter and sculptor. His name has various transliterations into English and variants include Aleksandr Kostetsky, Alexander Kostecky, Alexander Kostetski and Aleksandr Kosteckij. His artist stile is Magic Realism.