Interview for "Art Seen".
Tchaicovsky was interviewed in 1991 for the documentary series ‘Art Seen” by David Howard. The interview took place in the artist’s studio in California, shortly upon his return after living in Europe for over a decade. He talked about his journey both as a visual artist and as a musician.
- How do you see your art ?
I see myself as a human being who likes to create. I just have to do it. It is an inherent part of myself. I can feel that there is something behind me, a force, a power that is moving through me. Then I get insights that are really unexpected. I don’t know where they come from, but I have a feeling that I am connecting to a source that is beyond everything. So actually for me, art is a medium , a tool for being in touch and connecting to this source.
I don’t see myself as an artist or as a musician or as this or as that. I see myself more as an explorer or a scientist. I like to observe reality and to go into it. Painting, for example, is just one medium that I use. The point is just to be creative.”
I see my paintings and drawings as a means of communication because words are a very limiting. Expressing an insight verbally (especially one of a non-dualistic nature which is beyond the realm of duality) conjures up associations that eventually cause the original insight to become lost in words. What I try to do is express this insight visually through direct visual communication.
2. And how do you go about making this connection?
I think in all of the arts, indeed in everything we do, the main thing you have to practice is forgetting yourself. So it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, whether is music or painting or even science, the main thing is to forget yourself and jump into the dark so you come up with something new and unexpected. To forget yourself, that is the whole practice. Then you start feeling a connection with something in the formlessness that still holds you, so you don’t really fall into a void. That something takes hold of you and leads you; that is when the magic happens. It’s the same special experience for me when I play or compose music. I feel that special something in the improvisational moments and it is those moments that I strive for in the practice of forgetting myself.
3. What satisfaction do you get from your work?
The most rewarding thing for me in art is the insights that I never thought I would come up with on my own and realizing that it’s not me, that it is something char happens through me. I realize that I am just a vessel for something that expresses itself in an intelligent and quite amazing way. The curiosity to see the end result is what drives me on.”
4. Your artistic expression has changed over the years?
That is what I always strive for, to do new things that I have never done before. I never look at what other people are doing because I think everybody is unique and must find their own way, make their own contribution; realize what they have to give and to explore that.
As far as my own personal development goes, my art has changed because my life has changed and I have gone through different phases. The art expresses the phases I went through, the places where I lived and the insights I had at those moments in time. So it is always changing.
5. Your paintings seems surrealist. Is that how you would define yourself, as a surrealist?
“Surrealism• is a label and labels are very limiting. It is best not to use labels, avoiding to place the work in a box. If pressed I would label my work as “Esoteric Realism”. For example, when an artist paints a self-portrait, he usually looks at the mirror and paints the image of the person he sees in front of the mirror – that is “Realism” but to me a superficial manner of expression. In “Esoteric Realism” the artist questions: \Vho am I? \Vho is the witness looking at the image in the mirror? The artist keeps asking those existential questions and going deeper. I believe answers in this regards are best expressed non-verbally, through symbols and received through what I call “The Source” or what Carl Jung coined as, the “Collective Unconscious”. The artist is merely a channel through which the symbols are transmitted. My aim is to help the viewer understand another dimension of reality through the symbolism in my work.
6. Looking ahead, how do you see the future of art and your art?
I see the future of my art, and of art in general, uniting all different media such as music, video and theater, for its expression. Bringing everything together will make the experience so complete, so powerful, the viewer will be taken to a different level of perception. I think that technology will make this possible. I see technology in the future used in paintings, and I would like to imagine the ability to create cri-dimensional virtual realities in which people will actually live and go through them and experience different realities. This can happen. Yeah true reality, I think, is beyond all this. It belongs to a different level of being and, well, a different dimension. It is the source of everything we know, the dimension we live in us just a small part of it. There is a lot more that we have to findout.
7. Is there a message?
I think the visual impact of the work and how people get involved in it are interrelated. I don’t think the visual impact is enough in itself. It is still necessary for an artistic expression to have a message to really reach someone. I think it is important to explore different levels of reality and consciousness. It is not a question of belief. For me it is a fact. As human beings it is our duty to find out why we are here and what is the meaning of all this. To ask questions and to go deeper. We have the means to explore inside and outside of ourselves through creativity like music, the visual arts and also through science. Art and science can help human beings reach different levels of perception. What makes a great piece of art is just that element of magic that happens spontaneously in the moment without a preconceived idea or plan. A moment in which that mysterious energy from beyond comes through. Feeling and experiencing this mystery is what motivates me and challenges me to explore and create different worlds on a white canvas.
Beny 's Quotes
“I started to use computer animation as a tool to express insights into quantum physics and concepts that go beyond the limitations of verbal expression. In other words…to expresss the inexpressible. (1992)