24.03 - 12.04.10
In Honour. Rostyslav Koterlin
IN HONOUR OF HIMSELF
Human as a biological creature is inclined towards a balanced diet.
Over-eating occurs as well as cases of extreme pickiness in food and occasional
connoisseurship.
Human as a spiritual creature has an indestructible aptitude to shit - both
others' and own - and is capable of living in it, eating it, breathing it,
spilling it all over and even praying to it, while agreeing to pay a big buck
for these essentially free opportunities.
That is to say if you understand "human" as in entire
humanity or a human in general.
Every human chooses his or her attitude to
own-and-world bullshit him or herself.
But if you add first and last name - "Rostyslav" and
"Koterlin" - to the word "human", you will be able to see a history a human and
own-and-world shit relationship in drawings.
I am conscientiously calling Rostyslav Koterlin's
painting drawings, because I am not referring to their thoroughness and detail
(he can be both commercially perfect and openly sketchy) - they are drawings in
essence. They are sketches of nature, the only nature worth capturing, one that
everyone names in a different way. Some call it their own "Self", some - their
"inner Taliban" and some - a skeleton in a drawer.
Undoubtedly all the bones depicted by Rostyslav
Koterlin are his own skeletons that he inevitably surprised every time obtains
from his sock drawer and adds up to ones procured before. He collects them. He
puts them in a line. He sews clothes for them and sculpts their faces from the
most tender play dough. He initiates complex role games with them, he builds a
dome of a puppet theatre around them, leads them on stage, turns the lights on,
adjusts them, while children fill the hall, because there is no performance
more fun than the dance of Rostyslav Koterlin's inner skeletons. He sings in
their honour in such a whimsical way, because after all it doesn't matter how
to sing Hosanna, it only matters that there is no one to sing it to except to
yourself. "In honour" is "honour" because it's IN, and the rest is OFF or "fuck
off", because when you clean the highlands of your inner Taliban from the shit
drifts and shit avalanches, that you've been fed with by parents and children,
books, teachers, streetlights and all the other crap, you will see the green grass on the slopes.
You will see how fast it sprouts into the sky, how you loyal samurai exercise
on the meadows, and your inner bodhisattvas meditate in the bushes, and your
personal Buddha comes down from the mountains. When you see it all and become a
bit overwhelmed as to why you haven't seen it all before, that is when you will
understand that your inner skeletons going out to the pastures with the other
creatures are neither scary nor ugly, because they are a part of the Plan, because
they also need the oxygen, because it is the very Promised world where the lion
and the calf, the wolf and the lamb... and other glamorous crap is also there.
All you need is in there, all you need, all you need, in reality, this world is
inside of you, Rostyslav, and you are in it! And the situation is great indeed.
That's why you wouldn't call it anything else than IN HONOUR!
Izdryk
Author's master class is on
March 25 at 19.00
Autor's page
Rostyslav Koterlin
