Kathy Batista: You grew up in isolated location in Russia and now live in Tel Aviv.  Can you speak to the elements of Israeli and Russian culture, as well as the correlative urban and rural conditions, in your work?

Vadim Stepanov: In fact, that I lived in the Russian Far North is represented in my work by a silent spirit of freezing. The nature that surrounded me in my childhood was utterly static and silent, like in Jack London`s The White Silence; most of the year it was extremely cold and everything was frozen, so there was a feeling that one was looking at that view in total solitude. Of course, my work has been also influenced by the Orthodox icons and contrasting colors typical of Russia. As for the rural motifs, sometimes I include landscapes of some rural buildings that should be quite familiar and recognizable to the Israeli public because they have been extensively used by the Jewish artists of Russian descent. Several years ago, I also mentioned that Tel Aviv Bauhaus resembles church architecture and eventually found it more appropriate.

Has living in Israel allowed you to fulfill your aspirations? If so, what is It that brings your practice to its full fruition here?

Yes, it has allowed me to do so. Since there is no extended cultural tradition in Israel (it’s a very young state), I think that the interhuman modus operandi in this country is not person-society-cultural heritage but rather person-person. The state is constantly immersed in a daily routine, which always involves certain mystical danger. It creates a loophole for a person to slide into before the society’s iron teeth clench over him.

You have acknowledged your interest in a wide range of artists – from Flemish Old Masters to the modern master Diego Rivera and living artists such as Jeff Koons. How does your work synthesize these various influences as well as their respective periods of history?

There is no doubt that if the Flemish Old Masters or Diego Rivera working today, they would be perceived as contemporary artists with their unique artistic language. I feel that the aesthetic of art is always beyond the limits of time. I have always stood by the approach of whatever came before me is mine, and that’s why I apply techniques that can be sometimes associated with the Flemish Old Masters. And I use color schemes that can be sometimes associated with pop art, because the palette of a contemporary artist includes all the techniques and imagery of the past. One can compare it to the words that were invented a long time ago and are being invented up to this day, and how different authors use different combinations to make their own pieces.

Would you agree that your paintings reject traditional illusory perspective, giving preference to a technique that calls attention to the surface of the painting and thus affirms its status and object?

I absolutely concur. I am indeed drawn to plane or flat painting and both the process and the result of my work are equally important. I treat paintings as a wall being plastered and colored: I thoroughly study every inch of it, checking whether it is solid enough. With every new line added I fell how the painting becomes complete and the circle is closing, and when the painting is ready, it does become an integral object, and that’s why it has energy charge.

In addition to the influences of art history, what are the elements of popular culture that inform your work?

I bring my work certain inclusions of kitsch and pop art because I think there’s a perfect balance in the combination of classical painting with contemporary, even kitsch, forms of art.

Transformation is a key element within your work – for example, a human turning into an insect. There is a long tradition in literature, from classical mythology and the Bible to writers including Frantz Kafka, Salman Rushdie and Marie Darieussecq, and even contemporary vampire friction, that focuses on transformation. Is literature an inspiration of yours?

Yes, it is. Of course, I was born in the Soviet Union where one had no access to the latest world literature at the time, but all the classical literature and philosophy posing no direct threat to the Soviet regime was available. By the time I got access to contemporary world literature, I’d already been shaped under the influences of Kafka, Celine, Ionesco, Sartre, Beckett and some 20^th century Russian authors like Platonov et cetera. It`s hard to say how exactly I was influences by literature. I can only guess that all these authors wrote about the dark states of mind but eventually created a very positive and constructive impulse.

In this context, visual art is no different from any other form of art – the culture as a whole develops simultaneously. Aesthetic query arises, and all the artists, authors, et cetera are reacting to this query. Throughout hundreds of years, has not succeeded in answering the eternal questions but it has succeeded in their aesthetic representation. In this sense, contemporary art (as well as my work) is inclusive of everything that has been made before, like a building that was built 300 years ago but remains relevant to this day. The inspirations of all authors and all artists come from the same source. The transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly was a source of inspiration for artists a thousand years ago, and it remains so today as well.

Some of your paintings have a hallucinogenic quality. Are you interested in the idea of altered states of mind?

There was a time when I was interested in this idea but I had to pursued art in a serious way then. Boundary states of mind have been experienced by every single person who lives a full contemporary life. Once virtual space came into being, it became even harder to realize where the boundary lies, and I stand by the approach that if it is so hard to realize, than the boundary sound be removed. I do respect the visionaries, and considering my age, naturally, I do love the old generation (Huxley, Leary etc.) I personally cannot create in altered states of mind, so I just stand nearby and observe.

Your paintings often employ several approaches of techniques: for example, tightly painted characters that appear to be informed by the tradition of miniature painters or Flemish Old Masters juxtaposed with flatly rendered cartoon-like figures, then swathes of more expressive pain punctuated by geometric pattern or even drips resembling graffiti. Can you discuss your combining and layering of approaches within a single composition?

Technically, I try to achieve certain effects. I want a viewer`s eye to be constantly working because one`s eye is a direct way to one`s sensations and emotions. And thus, I employ an uneven structure of painting. My technique is having multiple floors. I make several layers of background to achieve transparency. It constitutes an interesting and complicated first floor. Then there`s very meticulous, very soft painting. This is the second floor. Then, with the flat and colorful cartoon-like characters and/or color spots I continue the story and also make a view`s eye dive deep and rise again. Then there is the fourth floor, these solid expressive lines made with thick paint. In my own perception, these are the rough energies that inform all around.

You have created tondi and even triangular-shaped paintings in addition to a traditional rectangular or square format. Can you explain your use of these forms? For example, are you referencing the High Renaissance in the tondo forms?

I mostly work with simple forms (rectangular or square). When I use other forms, there`s no hidden concept. I just enjoy going in different directions. Besides, the rules of composition sometimes just ask for strange forms. Though the years, I`ve learned to enjoy the work challenges. I like the feeling when I start working and see that everything is out of place and a composition is all wrong, and I know that eventually I`LL pull it off, I just don’t know how. It gives me a very positive work attitude because it`s like a motion picture when one doesn`t know how the story will develop but does know the ending will be definitely happy.

Can you discuss the role of text within some of your pieces, for example, Its Tender Indifference, The Orgasm of the Rat etcetera?

In my work text is always a part of painting, even when it’s not made in a format of comix but written in a rough and simple form. At times I give a great deal of thought to locating the text in the proper place. It is also very important to me that there is a certain poetic quality to the words. This is my way to verify aesthetic perfection: I envision the piece with and without the lettering. With the lettering, it is always better. Besides, sometimes it’s like in the motion pictures when the characters just stand staring at each other, the tension keeps growing, and then, when one of them says “ I love you “ , the viewer’s eyes fill with tears. That’s how it works. The tension grows, the gun is aimed, the viewer is ready to get a message, and then he gets it, sometimes in a very vague, abstract form.

In some of your resent works — We’ve Got Nothing to Fear 1 and 2, Contemporary Enough Now, Huh? — the viewer finds works of art represented within the painting or sculpture. I read this as a ‘meta-work’ — like Shakespearean meta-theatre. Would you agree?

The notion of meta — theatre appears to me in general, irrespective of the names, whether it’s Shakespeare, Brecht or Beckett: meta-theatre as a way of life. I have always played an artist, and now I am playing an artist who’s shortly having an exhibition. I relate the meta- theatre of my works to Beckett because through his texts and visualizations he clearly shows the self-reflection of an author.

Self-reflection in art is normal but I feel that the self-reflection of an honest artist originating in his work goes beyond the limits of an “event” (painting or sculpture). Eventually, for me a meta-life (a creative process) inevitably becomes the only and self-contained reality and I am holding onto it because it goes deeper and deeper, self-reflections close on themselves and, psychologically, it is getting hard to bear.

What do you see as the key difference between the paintings and your sculptures, aside from the obvious move from two to three dimensions? Are they ever conceived as counterparts? What role does each medium fulfill?

Generally, a painting demonstrates a milieu of the characters and a certain story happening to the characters, and a sculpture lets us take a glimpse at a character or characters taken out of a context of their environment, or it is a virtual place where one can find frescoes depicting certain action stories and sculptures as the monuments to their characters.

I am interested in your use of forest creatures and cartoon-like characters. Fairy tales are ambivalent and can be quite frightening. Do your protagonists have a dark side? And if so, is there a possibility for redemption?

My characters are very positive, even innocent, but many of them are destined to become outsiders and outcasts due to different circumstances, namely public opinion or the political situation, like the Ugly Duckling. I think that the Ugly Duckling’s further transformation into a beautiful swan is a poor consolation, which goes without saying, and its dark side is the revenge. My Pinocchio becomes a hostage of the Blue Fairy’s promises and undergoes numerous tragic trials only to get mundanity as a prize. He also has to have his revenge. I have always liked Bradbury Usher ll story where fairy tale books (symbolizing the fairy tale characters themselves) are destroyed. In my case, it’s not Mr. Stendhal who takes the revenge but the characters who do so. 

Would it be truthful to say that your work contains political metaphor? For example, the theme of masking and disguise seems prevalent. What do your characters personify about the human condition, as it relates to perhaps the geopolitical context in which you work?

I have a specific perception of politics. For me, politics is just the way of fighting or avoiding a war. In this context, I see that everything is steeped in politics, and everyday human relations are very political in their nature. Politics, as it is commonly understood, is just human relations brought to newspapers. In my eyes, politics is derogatory work, and a human being dependent on politics is a denigrated creature. My characters are aware of what is happening around them and they react in various ways. Most often they would look at it in a condescending and bewildered manner and sometimes they would indifferently observe the burning cities. Although they do suffer along with everyone else, they do it in a state of awareness, they are above it all, they are wise, they are charismatic, they are happy.

Further to the previous questions, does your work have a universal message or quality?

I guess so. One way or another, I am trying to tell something I am quite sure of: no matter what, every human being lives in a subjective reality that he creates for himself. I am trying to demonstrate that this reality does not necessarily have to be down-to-earth, it can be also mystical. Kids are a good example of this approach. They are the most down-to-earth and mundane fact ever, but still there is some higher, even sacred, quality to parenthood. Eventually a person can create his own aesthetic space and then he transforms and starts aestheticizing (improving) the world around.

If you weren’t an artist, what would you be?

An art critic or a lawyer.

Dr. Kathy Batista is a Director of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York and Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Global Futures in Art, Design and Media at Winchester School of Arts, University of Southampton.