The year 2017 was very important in my life. A lot of good things and bad things happened to me but all of those circumstances were leading me deeper into myself. And I guess I have started to realize those contradictions inside me and in others. To realize them and accept them. We are all “Beggars and Saints”.

In December 2017 I started a series of paintings which I called Beggars and Saints. In our lives we always ask (and sometimes beg) other people or ourselves for something. And we always give something to others. Even a beggar on the street can give us a feeling of gratitude for the life that we have. And if we help him out, it may give us a feeling of comfort and a peace of mind and spirit. We are all beggars and saints not only to others but also to ourselves.

The characters of this series take their origin from my own impressions. All faces are painted from imagination. Gestures of characters and different objects of the composition as well as a color composition compile visual images of a certain state of mind. Those characters are full of symbolism that helps me to invoke certain feelings inside the observer. They ask silent questions and help to find veiled answers. This series of paintings is a dissection of a human soul.

First part of the Beggars and Saints series is inspired by the people of India. I have been to this wondrous land back in 2013. The trip has left its trace but some years were needed to decompound the impressions and assemble them into something new. On the one hand, this series is very intimate and personal. On the other hand, it is about the people that surround us every day or even whom we have never met. But we can still feel something in common with them all. And it is also about you. Many people go to India in search of spiritual experience, and this is not by chance. The most valuable treasure of this land are people who provoke a lot of thoughts about who we are, where we are going  and who the real beggars and  the real saints are.