Vladimir Kush
Life is Beautiful
The canvas is divided into a green field—verdant and full of life—and a black field—death, defined by a dangerously close, looming shadow of a bird of prey. A rabbit is running for cover across the green. The contrast of green and black may as well be a symbol of a gambling table where life itself is at stake. In the contours of the shadow we can make out an outline of an arching bow, bent before the moment of release. 



The painting is full of movement: it is in the desperate dash of the rabbit and in the swooping of the predator over the grass stretching as if under a strong wind. The very angle-to-angle perspective underscores the swiftness of what is happening.

Vladimir Kush
Cruise of Cinderella
The ocean liner in the painting is sailing over the seas, as if gliding on the dance floor. One can imagine that this is a ship designed for jolly cruises, laughter, merriment, and happy times. Every deck is outfitted with dance floors and concert halls, where elaborate and lavish “Cinderella balls” are regularly held throughout the voyage.

 

The cruise liner symbolizes leaving the mundane of everyday life behind and taking off toward the oceans of fun.

Vladimir Kush
Back Side of the Moon
The painting is a metaphor for the imagination, reaching out to the mysterious unknown and discovering familiar structures. The beam of light is a metaphor for the “inner sight” of humans.

Vladimir Kush
Tree of Life
In world mythology, the Tree of Life is associated with the world’s axis connecting Heaven and Earth, and man aspiring to spiritual heights, with the cycles of life, death and revival and with the universe’s journey of perpetual renewal. Ancients believed in a relationship between man and tree, akin to that of communicating vessels – anything happening to one, translates to the other. Hence, a tree can become a man’s twin brother, a friend, a soul mate. By watching the ‘twin’ tree in the most crucial moments of a man’s life, they were able to determine if he was taking the right step and how the next chapter of his life was to unfold.

In Japan, bits of paper with messages are tied to certain sacred trees, trees that are considered to be abodes of ‘kami’ spirits or Shinto gods. The Charter Oak (White oak or Quercus Alba) became part of American history and Connecticut’s state tree as depicted on its 50 State Quarter. In essence, this is a metaphor of the tree reflecting the phenomena of human life. Using a metaphor, we give human aspirations tangible substance through the concepts of a tree’s growth and development.



TREE as an embodiment of life itself, carrying the flow of vital energy that nourishes the Universe - The painting shows the currents rolling down the tree and turning into rivers. According to ancient Chinese mythology, the sap of the Tree of Life is heavenly dew, a life-giving drink bringing rejuvenation. Whoever partakes in the fruits of this tree becomes immortal. In the painting, a tap fitted into the tree yields a precious drop of immortality. 

TREE as a road, without beginning or end - In horizontal projection, the trunk turns into a pathway branching out, or a river that joins the ocean (see also the leaf in the ocean). In a myth, Ariadne gives Theseus a ball of thread to help him find his way out of the labyrinth. In the painting the ‘threads’ of the tree trunk converge into a waterway and on the horizon, we see Don Quixote with a huge needle of a spear. 



TREE of life connecting earthly and heavenly life - In Slavic myths, the World Tree stands at the end of the Universe, its top in Heaven and roots in Hades, with gods descending and ascending. The ancient Slavic epic ‘The Lay of Igor’s Campaign’ reads, “For he, Boyan the Seer, when composing a song to someone, soared in his thoughts over the tree (of wisdom), ran as a grey wolf over the land, flew below the clouds as a blue-grey eagle,” hence the Russian expression, “spreading your thoughts all over a tree.”



TREE as a metaphor linking human fate with heaven – Like the cathedrals in Amiens and Reims, the Chartres Cathedral was built in the pattern of the stars of Virgo (Mary). In Chinese mythology, the Tree of Life is a ladder to the ‘everlasting faraway’ by which the Sun and Moon, the wise men and rulers, ascend and descend. Man gathers ‘Heavenly Fruits’ standing at the top of this ‘Staircase to the Sky,’ the analogy, Adam and Eve partaking in the fruits of the tree in the ‘Garden of Eden.’ A ‘broken’ apple lies on the ground, suggesting the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.



TREE as a phenomenon of time - Time turns material in the ‘currents’ flowing down the tree, the yearly growth rings recording the time. The web woven by the spider weaves the same phenomenon of time, the measuring out of the thread of one’s life, as referred to by the ancient Greek Parcae sisters.   

With the aid of metaphor, a tree opens up various interpretations of man and his spiritual journey including:

The coming of age (flying out of the nest)

Love (watching the sunset together)

Family (the bees)

Spiritual progression (the tree spiral)

Physical exercise/athletics (jumper, surfer)

Fantasy world, the workings of the mind (the web of Eiffel, a symbol of Paris)

Philosophy (the darkness of the hollow in the trunk, Plato’s ‘cave of ignorance’ contrasted by the Eiffel ‘web of knowledge’).

Vladimir Kush
Winged Bridge
There are two bridges in the painting. One bridge is the rainbow, the creation of nature, connecting the Earth and Heaven. According to the ancients, the souls of the fallen warriors on the rainbow are on the bridge, on their way to heaven.

 

The second bridge connects two shores and, as we see, is made of butterflies. It can also be called a “rainbow bridge”. It is known that the colors of the rainbow appear when the sunlight is refracted while penetrating the scales of the butterfly wings. Butterflies, as an emblematic symbol of the human soul, can be seen in different parts of the World. Jesus Christ holding the butterfly in his palm symbolizes the resurrection.

 

The worker bees definitely took a big part in the construction of the magic Bridge.

 

Symbolism of the images in the painting:

 

Worker Bees: Symbol of hard work. It is known that the hexagon shape of the cells is determined by minimalizing the wax material spent. Honey is always sweeter on the other side.

 

Sky: The curtain of heaven, which moves, revealing the miracles on the Earthly stage. Caterpillar on tracks and the Beecycle: Symbolizes the slow-paced movement and a fast ride. Bridge: Connects the two shores or two notions, standing apart from each other. Metaphor is also a bridge…

 

Butterfly: The symbol of beauty and free flight (the trajectory of its flight could not be figured by scientists).

 

Bridge of Butterflies: Connects two contradicting notions: free flight and bonding to the Earth. The beauty can connect things, seemingly far off from each other, at first glance.

Vladimir Kush
Garden Pool
Background:



In this painting, the artist looks back from the present to his early years where a garden was a safe haven, a place where miracles happened and huge red apples fell to the ground from above. Under the shade of the green foliage, he took refuge from the demands of grown-ups. The future artist remembered it as a desirable, exclusive spot, a ‘neatly altered landscape within a landscape’ or a kind of tableau. In the words of Roger Caillois, “Man created a garden not for survival, but for pleasure.”

 

Key Concept:



This exclusive spot nicely accommodates a game of pool. The green baize on a billiard table is like a canvas stretched on a frame, and the intricate trajectory, traced by the cue movements, resembles a pattern of brush strokes.

 

Billiard symbolizes a return to the artist’s present, where playing with sticks is replaced by the use of a pool cue, brush and palette. The role of a garden coincides with the role of a painting. It is an image within an image: the pool table fitting into the garden as the present into the past.

 

According to Caillois, “It is necessary to show that this is the very place where human creativity starts.”

 

It is worth noting that the art of a painter and that of a billiard player also share a certain symbolic ritual. After a few preliminary strokes, a ball is pocketed with a final shot, just as a painting is finished with a crowning stroke of the brush (‘natural materials’ used in both cases). “Done!” exclaims the artist, and a new masterpiece is born.

 

A sense of the joy of life and playing is upheld by the bright colors of the painting. The game aspect is supported by the figures of badminton players in the background, and a closer look reveals a secret allusion of people playing pool in the leaves of the trees.

Vladimir Kush
Route 66
Background:



Means of transport have long been such an important part of human existence. He was a genius, so to speak, the one who invented wheels. 

Those wheels became not only a necessity of life but also a means of learning about the world. They helped the man to map out continents, to make history with great geographical discoveries, to master the American prairies and to tame wild expanses of Asia.

 

Key concept:



We live by sensations and that of flying (or desire to be airborne) is a powerful stimulus bolstering our sense of the high speed of life. Anyone having a flight of fancy knows it feels like taking off. Something usually referred to as “wings sprouting from my back”.

The dragonfly steering a motorbike is a metaphor of someone flying through the vast surrounding space and bursting the bounds of the mundane. 

Vladimir Kush
Knight Beetle
Majestic and noble standing a tall 6 feet and 8 inches and 300 pounds, the KNIGHT BEETLE, devotedly protects the palace and its cherished occupants with weapons of nature held tenderly in fingertips. Altruistic in armor, caring for the Beetle is caring for nature itself. This magnificent work of art created by Metaphorical Realist, Vladimir Kush, is made of bronze, rich with details of grandeur, and stands upon a marbleized base, at dignified attention.

Vladimir Kush
Knight Beetle
Majestic and noble standing a tall 6 feet and 8 inches and 300 pounds, the KNIGHT BEETLE, devotedly protects the palace and its cherished occupants with weapons of nature held tenderly in fingertips. Altruistic in armor, caring for the Beetle is caring for nature itself. This magnificent work of art created by Metaphorical Realist, Vladimir Kush, is made of bronze, rich with details of grandeur, and stands upon a marbleized base, at dignified attention.

Vladimir Kush
Invading Night
Glowing eyes of the cat is the shining light of reason amidst the chaos of the everyday human life.Its piercing eyes are hanging in the dark just as the smile of the Cheshire Cat from the Alice in the Wonderland.

Vladimir Kush
Moonwatch
“Two things fill my soul...with wonderment...and joy: the starry sky above me, and the moral law within me.”

-Immanuel Kant

 

Since ancient times, the sky never has ceased to amaze us. We are looking at the moon and unexpectedly discover that it is as if we looked into a deep, dark well! Maybe we just glimpsed the dark side of the moon, which is ordinarily beyond the reach of our eye?

 

Channeling mankind’s collective stream of consciousness, you might recall the predictions of an old star tracker. He thought that the hidden side of the moon was concave.

 

Extrapolating from that, he concluded that one day, heavenly forces would turn the moon around its axis, and its light, as if focused through a magnifying glass, would burn the earth.

 

But the moon is rather an abandoned dwelling. As a Russian poet wrote:

 

“Looking at night...the moon in the heads,

as the empty square:

without the fountain. But made from the same stone.”

-Josef Brodsky

 

We want to believe that we are not alone in the universe...

 

The night is deep.

On the dark horizon

The constellations arise.

 

The face of the horse is beautiful and light

His gaze is directed toward distant worlds

Where perhaps herds of horses just like him

Graze in freedom. 

__

 

Contemplation of his heavenly body is like diving

Into the bottomless depths

Of our subconscious mind

We look a t ourselves from the darkness

And watch the hidden features come to light.