Gregory Vernitsky
I first started painting years ago, in Odessa, Ukraine; later, I turned to clay modeling and wood carving. After moving to San Francisco in 1991, I started using found materials and create assemblages.
Most of my work reflects on time, scale and narrative.
Human faces and figures are major themes in what I am creating. I am interested in expressing emotions and movements with minimum details. In other works it is time itself - its passing, its stillness, and the stress of waiting for something to happen.
Other pieces - more abstract, mostly wall sculptures - reflect on some universal themes and feelings, like loneliness, earning for freedom, perseverance and fear.
Small Monument are unified by issues of space, scale and size perception, and of a changing meaning of public art. Most are small, and uses various recycled and found materials besides wood (cast metal, 3D printing, stones, plastic, glass, various industrial parts).
And the last group is a play with meaning and narrative – they are genre sculpture, created with abstract means. Museum pieces of art, book illustration, or memory of a poster or sign can be a subject. Play with memory - like recreation of a vanished world or making a copy of someone's artwork in different media without looking for reference.
Pieces I make are at the intersection of joy and discovery. Joy of creating something new, discovery of a hidden beauty in a piece of wood, or another found object. I am salvaging pieces that wake up my imagination, and let them lay idle for a while. Sense of responsibility motivates me: I feel that I have to reveal a hidden structure, movement, or idea and share it with another person. I would stop carving and cutting when sculpture can occupy and hold space, and when, I hope, the meaning of the piece is revealed.
