Meet Stranger

interviewer - Inga Clemens

Аlexander Shuisky a.k.a Stranger, a_str is a highly skilled painter trained in the nuances of his craft, but he is also a natural-born teller of fairytales, and a Glass Bead Game professional player.


IC: Are there any flashbacks, vivid dreams, deja vus about any particular century/age/world?

Str: Oh, yes, constantly. Several of them. One series has not only a known name, but a recorded one - Alternate Petersburg. I dream-see it constantly, and "Petersburg" is just a moniker, really, because it's actually quite a separate city, from which you can go anywhere, limits set only by your mind. St.-Petersburg is present there more than anything, only because I know it best, of all cities. But, having visited other "knot" cities, I found in them pieces of my dreams. It's a very strange feeling, but somehow right all the same - as though you just dragged something new into this world, that hadn't been a part of reality until now, and had wanted to be for a long time.
The second series is about the end of the world. These dreams are always tied to a specific Cathedral (I am determined to find it in reality, although slightly afraid), the saving of the world, and my own death. Often, I am capable of more in these dreams than the waking me, but this is never globally crucial, only to complete my own business here. Overall, I have rather complicated relations with God, and His plans regarding this world.

IC: If you needed to draw an emblem, or coat of arms for your and Tiger's home, what would it be? What symbol, and writing?

Str: We've thought about this, and decided that it would have to be a unicorn, with the writing, "Credo". Maybe drawing it mightn't be a bad idea :).

IC: Is there a favorite color?

Str: Hard to say. In clothing- black. In nature - the color of the June sky. In painting- lilac-blue.

IC: Most disliked sound?

Str: Anything too harsh. The thing is that I, apparently, have a peculiarity in my responses- sound of a certain frequency hurts physically. It doesn't have to be more than a false note. Oh, here, got one in particular: I totally can't stand a hot microphone.

IC: Where does technique end and inspiration begin?

Str: Wait, those are complete separate things! "I know what..." to me doesn't mean "I know how...", and this is my biggest problem. So with me everything's the other way round: technique, with clunking and reluctance, tries to slot in where inspiration is already hard at work. Every time, in trying to communicate what I see, I'm ripping through my inability to draw. And when I find a certain move, it turns out I've just invented another bicycle. But to me it's important, going through all this "invention" myself, so it's doubtful I'll ever go in for an education in the classic sense of the word. My learning sessions are fits of drawing from life, when you clearly see "what" and inspiration is switched off indefinitely. You're left to simply "pump" technique, like gammas. And then these things pop up in the most unusual places - when you're wracking your brain over how to lay out your plains in light and dark, so as not to lose the idea, and you remember- "Wait. I've already done this. Light comes from here, this bit is seen, and that's about this dark" and all the pieces sneak together. Helps a lot.

IC: Your views on fame? Would you continue drawing/writing on a deserted island?

Str: Yes, of course! It's always looking for a way out, flickering in front of your eyes. If you don't let it out, you can't be rid of it.
But immersion into society is also very important. It's an education, maturation, it's the mould into which your own world is poured. Fame - I want, yes.
Firstly, because my stories run parallel with those of many others, who just can't write or draw. Can't do it, to the extent that when they see mine, they exclaim, "Here it is! I wanted to say exactly this, but couldn't!" And new stories are only born when you release the old.
Secondly, there's a material side. I think it was Vonnegut that said, "I really like money. You can use it to buy the time to write books." The more time I have to write and draw, the more I will do. If, however, I have to make a living in some other way, there's practically no time left, at all.

IC: Who are your teachers?

Str: First and foremost - Sergey Pavlovich Turubarov, a Petersburg artist, the only (at that time) member of the Artists' Union who was instructing in a children's art school. The rest only taught at special schools. During two years with him, I took so much that it lasted me all through my further personal education. On from that, I was taught by everything I could take from anyone. Most influences, of course, came from modern. Firstly, European, because the Russian quickly receded into "A la Russe", an unpleasantness supposedly based on "cultural" roots. And Japan, of course. Their sight, their ability to forge grass on metal, and to place, onto the hilt of a sword, a dragon as well as a grasshopper.

IC: Please talk a little about Japanese selection of works ?

Str: These works I do, for the most part, on order. In one form or other, they are all connected to the engravings of the Edo period- the high Renaissance of Japanese engraving, which attracts me with equal parts decorativeness and expressiveness. It is almost purposely created for interiors, very easy to work with, easy to vary the combinations of flats and protrusions. It's easy to incorporate into a frame familiar to the European eye, and still maintain the lightness and exotic aftertaste, which is impossible to do, for example, with oil paintings.

IC: Different materials - leather, wood, stone.. are they attempts to create depth? Experiments with different techniques?

Str: Most importantly, yes, depth. An attempt to transcend the frame of the picture, or rather make the frame and what is behind it part of the picture. And, yeah, it's technique experimentation too. More monotone, and in structure, a tougher material to work with than paint, it gives you the chance to infuse an element of the monumental somewhere it seemingly had no place.

IC: What book is currently on your bedside table?

Str: Right now, a paper and pen, because the show is in only two weeks. But if we want to talk about the last writing that affected me, then it's "Borderliners" by Peter Hoeg.

IC: What moves you to go on?

Str: Dreams. They do it from the outside. From the inside, it's stories. They mill around, looking for an outlet. Every time, they want to take on a form, and every new form demands new skills.

IC: What do you have in your pockets?

Str: The One Ring, and a couple of chestnuts.