Arseniy Lapin Interview — Continuous Revelations

Greetings and welcome to my conversation with the artist Arseniy Lapin. Arseniy is a painter and an author, a storyteller and a musician, and an intriguing person. His paintings initially caught my attention. Soon afterwards I discovered his music~ I find his flute playing delightful~ and his stunning animation work. It is hard not to be inspired and delighted by his work and I am pleased to share his work with you.

CR:

Where did you grow up? What role did creativity and art play in your childhood and what were your major influences from that time?

AL:

I was born in 77 in the city of Mytishchi near Moscow. There was a very good art school in Mytishchi. I studied with the talented artist and teacher Evgeny Kolchenko. He talked a lot about his adventures. In the Soviet Union free art was banned and the life of a real artist was like the life of a pirate in the Caribbean. I was very fascinated by art and I entered the animation school.

Then I taught at my art school and worked as an artist in a puppet theater.

CR:

What kind of artist was Evgeny Kolchenko? What kind of adventures did he have and what were some of the most important things that he taught you?

I'd love to know more about what it was like growing up in the Soviet Union, if you are inclined. I'm the same age as you and often imagined what that life was like.

AL:

Evgeny Kolchenko was a true Renaissance artist like Leonardo Da Vinci.

He lived an interesting life. He was an artist, sculptor, sailor on a science ship, traveler, archaeologist, museum curator, book designer, teacher and director of an art school. His paintings and sculptures did not fit well with Soviet ideology. For this reason, in the 70s, he became a teacher and director of an art school in the city of Sevastopol. The school in Sevastopol existed for several years. Many students have become famous artists. The school was also bad for Soviet ideology and the local authorities banned teaching.

Evgeny Kolchenko moved to Mytishchi and again became a teacher and director of the school where I and many of my friends studied. The main idea of his school was that the student does not repeat the path of his teacher, does not copy classical art, but seeks his own path in art. It was very interesting for me.

Evgeny Kolchenko was a good storyteller.

He talked about his travels through the deserts of Central Asia, archaeological finds, about the risky life of free artists, about marine scientific expeditions to different seas and countries, and sometimes sad stories about the Second World War he witnessed.

The Soviet years were a good time for my family.

My mom and dad were both electronics specialists in the military industry. It was a prestigious job.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the military industry was divided among various criminal groups. My parents had to look for another job. It was a severe blow to my family.

CR:

Evgeny Kolchenko sounds fascinating and intense.

Can you talk about the different art you do? I see music, painting, sculpture, animation~ all of it seems to me to be a part of a cohesive whole.

What is your relationship to nature and/or spirituality and religion? How does that factor into your creations?

AL:

Painting is undoubtedly my main art. When I was 15 years old I could already do a good painting, but I noticed that many people do not understand my paintings. I decided that animation would help my painting find its way into people's hearts. I graduated from animation school. I found an interesting job in a puppet theater in my hometown. And for several years he made puppets and decorations. The performances with my participation were popular.

But I wanted to live in my own house, on my own land. I bought an abandoned house with an apple orchard in a small village 350 km from Moscow.

During this time, good computers became available to me. And I started making cartoons on my home computer and uploading them to the Internet. The music for my cartoons was composed and recorded by my wife Natasha Shtanko. She is a good violinist and multi-instrumentalist.

I've always liked music, it's a real abstract art. Once my friends forgot a bamboo flute in my workshop. I tried this, and gradually I learned to play flutes and other musical instruments. Sometimes I arrange live concerts. I am screening a film about my kayak trips to the White Sea islands. And I play the soundtrack live on different musical instruments.

I really love wildlife, and in the background of my paintings you can always find Karelian rocks, the sky of the White Sea and the mosses of the Tver forests.

I am not a religious person, but I really like the mythology of different religions, the architecture of temples and ancient rituals. Christian and Buddhist philosophy is close to me.

All this, too, imperceptibly becomes a part of my cartoon pictures and children's books.

CR:

Can you tell me more about your work with the puppet theater? What kinds of stories did your troupe tell? Who were your main audiences? What did you learn from that experience and how does that inform what you do now?

AL:

It was one of the best puppet theaters in Russia under the direction of the famous artist Stanislav Zhelezkin.

The theater had a very wide range of performances in different techniques. From miniature marionettes to giant two-meter puppets.

There were performances for young children and adults. Folktales, Shakespeare and the avant-garde come together under one roof.

I was working on a performance based on Russian folk tales.

It was a good school for me. When I started making the first sculptures, they looked like my theatrical puppets, and when I started showing them in galleries, people quickly began to buy my works for a lot of money.

This helped me make enough money for my own house. My sculptures still look a little like puppets :)

CR:

That sounds amazing! What a cool experience for you. Your sculptures are beautiful and I completely see the influence of puppetry.

Earlier you talked about how people were not understanding your paintings and I was wondering if you could expand upon that a little. What were they missing or confusing?

AL:

I think this is a natural phenomenon. If the picture shows an unknown man, this picture will make less of an impression on the viewer than if the picture shows, for example, Odysseus.

People know the story of his adventures, and the picture will be filled with special meaning.

I noticed that people began to empathize more with the characters of my paintings when they watched cartoons with their participation.

Or read my book about them.

CR:

Your art is captivating. There is whimsy and magic in all of it. Your work very much seems alive and rooted in nature and old stories.

What is your house and property like? I imagine it might be a strong influence on your art. What is your life like there? What occupies your time and how does that manifest in your creations?

AL:

Thank you for your kind words!

I live in an old log house surrounded by an apple orchard on the edge of populated areas. In the summer I travel to the Russian north. To the islands of the White Sea and sometimes to the mountains of the Kola Peninsula. The forest landscapes of the Tver region, the cliffs of the White Sea and the northern mountains become the backdrops of my paintings. While traveling, I often meet different interesting people who are attracted by the wild nature. They often become characters in my paintings. In the forests of the Tver region and in my apple orchard, I observe the life of birds and animals. They often become the prototypes of dragons and other strange creatures in my painting.

CR:

Can you tell me more about those areas? They are intriguing areas of the world for me and I'd love to visit them some day. I've got a strong attraction to Scandinavian folk music and some ancestors from that region and it has a draw for me. Also, if you could indulge me, what kind of people do you meet out in the wilds? Were there any in particular who made the strongest impressions on you?

AL:

It is very difficult for me to give a short answer to this question. Perhaps this is a topic for an autobiographical book. But I'm not sure if I can be a good realistic writer. I have not tried doing this yet.

I always take a lot of photographs when traveling. Usually there are enough photos from a summer trip to show on my blog all winter.

I use some of my real adventures in my children's books. One day a storm forced me and my friends to hide in the White Sea Tomb Bay. There were the ominous ruins of an old military base and ancient "corridor" tombs on the sea shore.

The laboratory of the alchemist Necrotox from my book Runaway City is very similar to this place.

Travelers to wild lands are always interesting people. These are people of different professions who are attracted by freedom and are interested in extraordinary things. Many of them later became my friends.

CR:

That definitely makes sense to me. Could you tell me more about the children's books you have made?

Also, so long as you can integrate it with your other pursuits, I think you should write about your life. From my perspective, it sounds fascinating.

AL:

I have always dreamed of becoming a writer and illustrator for children's books. I love books by Tolkien, Astrid Lindgren, Tove Janson. I like children's books which are understandable for children and not boring for adults. I tried to do something like that. I wrote the book Runaway City. This is an adventure story for children from 7 years old. The characters in the book: the pilot of the seaplane, his friend, the wandering knight Master Bird, and the former pirate Captain Brahms embark on a dangerous journey to save their world from the villainous Alchemist Necrotox.

I have sent my manuscript to various publishers, but unfortunately the publishers are afraid of graphomaniacs and do not read letters from strangers.

I tried to show fragments of text and illustrations on my facebook page. Many people liked my story. And people helped me find a publisher. Runaway City was published in French by a Belgian publisher Versant Sud .

https://www.versant-sud.com/jeunesse/livre/lhistoire-de-maitre-oiseau-et-des-villes-en-fuite/

I was very inspired by this success and wrote two more books for children.

The "Adventures of the Blacksmith" is a sequel to "Runaway City".

And "Hilda and Jedzy" is a story about the adventures of the forest princess Hilda and her friend the drummer Hedgehog Jedzy in the world of forest and mountain spirits.

Now I am looking for publishers for my children's books in Russian, English and German.

And I think my stories can be a good basis for full-length cartoon scripts. I like the full-length cartoons of the Pixar and Ghibli studios. I learned a lot from them.

CR:

Arseniy, could you describe your painting technique? How do you go about creating these images? What does the process usually look like and is it any different when you are painting your sculptures?

AL:

I can use many different painting techniques. Acrylic, watercolor, airbrushing, oil painting on canvas, primed paper, wooden boards. Right now I mainly paint oil on primed wooden boards. I use a thin layer of primer to show the grain of the wood grain. Nature tells me the contours of future painting. In my wooden sculptures I use the same painting method. Sometimes I use sketches. In my travels, I draw a lot in a notebook and these drawings then become my new paintings. And I can work without a sketch. I like to improvise. Such pictures are more unpredictable and vivid.