The iconography of full moons, reflecting pools, garden statuary, songbirds, butterflies and flowers has long been associated with notions of nostalgia and sentimentality. I draw on inspirations ranging from Russian children’s books to Victorian illustrations, from Japanese prints to Dutch botanical paintings, in an effort to explore the sentimental image as a vehicle for personal expression. I engage the bittersweet, the quaint, the melancholy and the picturesque to depict a world of glorious decay.

Often I employ paper mounted onto a stretched canvas to evoke a collage aesthetic associated with collections and scrapbooks as well as to achieve a delicate ground that registers every detail, brushstroke, stain, smudge, tear and deviant mark. Using a wide range of historical materials, methods and techniques, these works attempt to recreate the sensations and mechanisms of loss, memory and desire.

Visis Stas Orlovski's website here.