Being equally gifted in both Science and Art, Galina V. Volkova combines fundamental preparation in the filed of Applied Mathematics, doctorate studies in Foundations of Mathematics and training after conferral of graduate degree in Computer Science with everlasting admiration for the Visual Arts.

Always juggling priorities for her education and professional career in both scientific and artistic directions, she studied and contributed to Journalism, Poetic Movie Art Theory, Poetry and Fine Arts.

Currently, she is teaching Art I and II, Mathematics and Computer Science courses in No. California region, conducting consulting in Data Analytics and actively participating in local Art events in the San Francisco Bay Area and up North California as an exhibiting artist.

 

It’s always both beneficial and rewarding for the artist to observe public’s reaction while viewing his/her exhibiting artwork and absorb their aesthetic impressions. I would call it a confirmation stage for ideas implemented on canvas. Thus after lockdowns were lifted up, the search for healing became obvious and well-defined tendency.What does console human heart? Hope and only hope! By Tarkovsky’s1 criteria, status of Art is deniable for peaces that does not provide this component, namely hope (in both direct and inverse terms).

Kandinsky earlier described even a trajectory from concept of hope right 2 up to Heaven: Hope —> Heaven. In fact, his well-known book “Concerning the Spiritual In Art” had original title “The Art of Spiritual Harmony” (1910-1914).

Thus Harmony emerges as a second component of Spirituality in Art. Human brain enjoys harmonized presence in music, visual art, human relations, health, food, communication, social behavior, etc., because it manifests achieved balance and more or less stabilized entropy for 3 system of any nature.

In Visual Art, Harmony has only one form and shape: Beauty (in spiritual, of course, sense – by Doestoevsky’s (“beauty will save the world”) and Schiller’s (”beauty is a harmony”) definitions, and not as a silicon-alike implementation of limited human effort in materialistic world. Beauty is both easy to comprehend as poet Margarita Aliger expressed it:

Beauty, as generous and simple [entity],

Is always clear

For all languages in the world,

All over the earth, and for any century.

and desirable:

…man-painted canvases

captivate what is

unquenchable burning

of the desirable beauty for people.

Aesthetically in painting, eye (receptors), and, therefore, brain (processor), are focused on shape and colors. By Kandinsky, colors have “their psychic effect”: “Color is a power which directly influences the soul.”

That’s a quite noticeable right now: people are searching for healing combinations of hues on artist’s pallet. While shape could be defined by style, power that has direct impact on human soul is a color.

We long for a healing power via invigorating pallet of colors. Healing serves as a tool for human self-reflecting and, therefore, selfdefining, which is essential.

Prof. M.O. Mazel, in her Comparative Lecture on Tarkovsky and Dostoevsky Philosophy, emphases that “a human conscience… eventually rises when a person has improperly lived his life.” as a conclusion on some aspects from Stalker’s Prayer (monologue): “…people must know themselves. What do they exist for? A very important point is the human conscience – the voice of God in man.”

Thus we have just obtained the third component of Spirituality in Art: Humanity.

Triad Hope-Harmony-Humanity is a credo that most appealing to me as an artist. Without hope, harmony could not be reached. Without harmony, humanity will not be served. Plain and simple.

Standby, I would say, is the most natural and typical condition for artist. Abilities to express our ideas on canvas or paper come with responsibilities to multiply them. Artist must work regardless any external events or conditions: rain or shine, war or peace, lockdowns or freedom of choice. Artist’s primarily responsibility is to justify the gift received from the above.

Think of Composer Dmitri Shostakovich when he began working on his Seventh Symphony in Leningrad while it was under siege in 1943. Or Andrei Rublev, a Russian Orthodox Iconographer, painted his Trinity icon while famine and war grip the Medieval Russia. Conditions define nothing, artist’s determination – everything.

It’s virtually impossible to formulate goals and priorities in creative work better than Poet Boris Pasternak did it in his verses written in 1956. It’s 5 rather lengthy, but worthwhile down to each line

To be renowned is not a virtue.

That’s not what’s lifting us aloft.

Don’t tag your papers for the future,

Don’t quiver every draft. Creation is an act of sharing,

And not a way of making fuss.

It is disgracing, being barren,

To be a theme of people’s buzz.

And you should live without pretension,

But should endeavor, after all,

To win the genuine attention

Of space, to hear the future’s call.

And you should indicate omissions

In your own fate, not manuscripts,

With chapters destined for revision

Marked on the margins of your trip,

And deepen into the obscureness,

And hide your footsteps in its turfs

The way terrain conceals its surface

When in the fog it lurks and morphs.

Your followers will put on trial

Your every step from end to start.

But you yourself should not your triumphs

And failures try to tell apart,

And not allow a tiny fraction

Of give-and-take with your intent,

But be alive in every action,

In every action, to the end.