My way:
My works are always a travel, adventure within time and space. The structures of my works are the skeletons of the children’s sculptures developed and logically completed in the welded compositions.
Materials and technologies — black or stainless steel, argon arch welding. Pattern of welded designs, a combination of black and white metals define much in an elGephest aesthetics.
Theme is a familiar from the childhood world of adventure and games. Recall: cowboys and Indians, kossaks and robbers? Each man in his soul is a horseman, each boy until grey hair is playing with soldiers-toys. Just not each one is ready to admit that.
Myth and mythology — the world understandable language not requiring translation. Centaurus, Minotaurus, Amazone and other myth’s heroes are the famous brands. They are not needed translation but comments and explanations are possible and extremely desirable. At any time and circumstances Greek mythology was and is a special planet of culture and art where we derive plots, comparisons and metaphors for current days from.
My sculptures’ characters do always belong simultaneously to the different worlds, they embody the features of four different beings: Bucephalus — bull power and horse beauty, Minotaurus — shares an essence of beast and human, Iphigenia, Eurydice — the world of alive beings and ghost, Pegasus — Earth and Sky, Orpheus and Achilles — Life and Death. That fascinating ability of mythic beings simultaneously to be parts of the different worlds and embody themselves the different essences make them irreplaceable. After all, the different worlds only could guess about each other existence. The object of mythical heroes is to unite those worlds into a single Cosmos.
The genre is not for me to define. It is certainly based on the ancient classic sculpture, but…
Mission: "Everything in this world is afraid of Time. Time is afraid of Pyramids. Pyramids were built by artists. The elGephest sculptures — are winged riders put into shining steel in the everlasting fight of Art against Time."
Volodymyr Ivanov