Internal Light,
Oleksandr Krasyuk
It was once said (a very long time ago) that pictures are simply windows to the inner world of an artist, and this old truth hasn’t lost its verity. However much an artist will compete with himself for the sake of satisfying the fashionable needs of the market, however much he fools his own vision for the benefit of the current success in someone else’s eyes, at least a shadow of the author’s I - even a reflected I - always remains in all of his works. In other words, the pictures are unique imprints of the different states of the artist’s soul. Imprints of that idealistic substance, the existence of which even the most devoted materialists do not risk to deny - but instead modestly conceal with the quasi-biological euphemism of the “inner world”…
I don’t know how Michael Murphenko interprets these terms. One can only suspect that an artist who gave the title “Hilism” (antithesis to “Nihilism”) to his exhibition, does not share a lot of the currently glorified values of Life such as the struggle for values…
At first sight his pictures seem to be childishly defenceless. They seem to be created without any second thought about the external interpreter’s reaction, the one who will peep in the windows of someone else’s soul. But there is a spectator, and he gazes critically at what is in them, or to be more precise, what is in it, in the soul of this Scot from Glasgow, who by some miracle decided to become (and became!) a Ukrainian. And what he sees are created with the help of an economical palette on the planes of different sizes compositions that can, formally, be easily read as figurative. Is it worth trying to interpret them as the visual codes of the author’s barely hidden philosophy? It is clear that something repeats itself in variety of ways with the easily perceptible rhythm in these paintings. The common modality remains. However, perhaps only the very few, who are in the know, get the entirely understandable message? For example, the gestures which are meant to be used in a family circle are commonly correctly perceived as an outburst of pure emotion, nothing more. But the information that is transmitted by them has often a far deeper meaning not for the spectator who is more attentive, but for the one who is interested in establishing contact. Making contact is a momentary flash, which is followed by clarity that needs only to be mutually sustained. Clarity is a light, isn’t it? The nature of Michael’s rhythm is that his pictures have inside them the source of inner light, which burns in each one with an almost even intensity. It’s not hyperbole, but a physical characteristic of his painting. The method of organizing colours and lines on a canvas causes such effect. One wants to believe that it is the reflection of the architecture of the young’s artist’s soul space. Music is the first thing that comes to mind for comparison, namely the laconic persuasiveness of a jazz solo by Miles Davis.
It is easy see that in the ‘Portrait of the Son’ or in ‘Mother’ the bright or even blinding light is radiated by the child’s head. In ‘Winter Long Ago’ the light comes from the distant white mountain. In ‘Venus’, the dawn burns in the middle of the growing chasm between the just born from the blood red actinia and not yet fully formed body of Aphrodite and the grandiose, yet already faded figure of the flying far away, like a cloud Venus of Milos.
The light burns powerfully even from the modest looking monochrome drawings of Murphenko. Symptomatic are the pack of barely outlined contours of multiple ‘Rats’, which encircle the unseen source of blinding light – which they are not able to devour. Is it not in this tiny ink drawing, that the very not secret philosophy of Michael Murphenko is hidden?
