Konstantin Poll, avatar artist

Konstantin Poll's paintings are sometimes feared. They evoke strange, ambiguous feelings, suggest thoughts that lurk somewhere in the depths of the subconscious, stimulate the imagination and intuition. Psychologists investigate the altered states into which the viewers (or in the author's own words, co-creators) of his pictures fall. Esoteric see them as portals to other worlds. Physicists measure the bio-field of the artist's hands. Lyricists throw up their hands, seeing his subjects as myths of the ancient world

Konstantin Poll was born on the 8th of May, 1968 in Zernograd, Rostov region under the name Konstantin Lunyakin. His alter ego was born half a century later, along with the birth of his first painting - on 6 March 2018 in Bulgaria.

Many would be surprised by such a long journey in today's ultra-rapid times. But it has been a journey of natural maturation. From successful businessman to aspiring artist. Konstantin Poll fundamentally abandoned an academic art education, replacing it with travel around the world, personal acquaintance with the world's masterpieces and their creators, the study of psychology, occult knowledge and world religions.

During the period between his births, Konstantin Poll immersed himself in completely different spheres of activity - politics, education, show-business. But having achieved success in the material world, he continued to look for something more global - a way to remove the armor of people's emotional deafness to each other. A way out of the imposed matrix. This search led him to the path of Open Art.

Open Art is not just a new word in art. It is an embodied idea capable of dispelling the stupefaction of alienation and uniting all of us through the individual destination of each.

And sometimes that can be a bit scary. Therefore -> see the first sentence.

My Manifesto.

I don't like pathos and falsehood. I don't like restrictions. You've probably figured that out from my paintings by now, haven't you?

I don't like to call my paintings mine. They came through my hands, brushes, paints with and without wires. But are they mine? They are ours. They found their way into our world through me. And they continue in you.

And actually, are they paintings? They're portals. To unknowable spaces where you and I can meet and have a heart-to-heart talk. Help each other in some way. And sometimes point out pain points.

Again, that's pathos. How can I put it simply?

I paint worlds from your deep childhood or from your distant future. From my dreams in which I see your dreams. From your fantasies refracted through mine. And I often don't draw myself. They paint through me. Do you know what that means? When EVERYTHING passes through you, and you are physically powerless to refuse to manifest what you want to materialize with your hands/brain/di... skills. I know I'll be understood by artists, car locksmiths, teachers, students, pro-lifers and burnt-out volunteers alike.

I used to think I was about being ultra-modern. Then I thought I was about the future. Art of Future. But my co-creators say that's outdated too. That's how time flies on this planet! It turns out that I am not about future and not about time at all. I am talking about timelessness. I mean meta! There is a lot of air in the vastness of meta and an infinite number of choices. I feel good there, and that is why I invite you to join me.

Phygital is what art historians call the medium I work in. I'm grateful that art historians call it work. But I don't like falsehoods and restrictions. Did I say that already? Well, ok. We're all living in the reality of the phygital now. I'm happy to be a co-creator of this new world. I'm glad for the chance to create with you.

You can do it. It's all been done before. And it will be. It's all scripted. It was, is and will be Avatar.

The multi-dimensional worlds of Konstantin Paull.

The art of the future is how Konstantin Poll, the Avatar artist, once named his art. Open Art is how he was greeted by a world in which the future is uncertain and the past is foggy. A world opened for transformation.

Avatarism as a trend in visual art is based on a synthesis of the intellectual way of knowledge of the world, typical of Western culture, and spiritual traditions of the East.

Konstantin Poll's Avatarism is a manifestation of freedom of form and fluidity of content. The artist is free to choose the means of visual perception of the changing world. And freedom of choice of the viewer, expressed in the degree of his readiness to become a co-creator of reality.

"By choosing an avatar one can become the best version of oneself" - this is how James Cameron suggested seeing the world in his film Avatar. In the Open Art space you are already the best version of yourself, you are a genius in your own right. And if you don't feel like one yet, you just need to find that place. How? The answer is in the paintings.

A fish that's been forced to climb trees will feel worthless. But once it finds its waters, it will become inimitable in its activities. Konstantin Poll's paintings are tools for finding 'its waters'.

Konstantin Poll creates art on the edge of childlike naivety and millenary wisdom, broadcast by ancient civilizations. In his paintings there is both a struggle of the opposite and a search for a unified land. His works are imbued with philosophical principles such as the unity of the empirical and the virtual. There are references to the philosophy of the cosmists, the futurological ideas of Nikolai Fyodorov and the mystical concepts of Nikolas Roerich.

Metaphor, symbolism, subtle irony and self-irony, quotation of archetypical patterns, and alternative vision of subjects tired of conventional interpretation are his frequent tools.

Konstantin Poll does not limit himself to canvas or paper; he works with metal, wood, ink. He combines the painter's usual artistic materials with those donated by the environment - physical and digital.

The morphology of his art is based on the juxtaposition of the not yet connected, but in anticipation of it. It is the creation of a reality that simultaneously exists and does not.

It is the art of meta-modernism: a state of "meta", a moment of transition, in the very essence of modernity, which is broadcast through the unity of physiological and digital networks (phygital). It is a state of liminality from which the transformation of the one who has come into contact with this art is inevitable. It is a collective transformation through the personal. A candid exploration of life where allowing oneself to be vulnerable is a conscious decision.

The understated nature of Konstantin Poll's work leaves the paintings open - both to interpretation and to co-creation. When you look into them you are immersed in an altered state of consciousness from which a new vision of the world is accessible.

The artist introduces us to an unfamiliar environment, sometimes beyond our comfort zone: a fictional, whimsical world constructed from elements of familiar reality. Oscillating between semantic polyphony and easy-to-read allegories, we begin to ask ourselves questions that in everyday life might not have occurred to us. We enter a layer of perception of reality that has often remained beyond rational comprehension. It is neither conscious nor unconscious. It is the thin layer between sleep and wakefulness that most people have fallen into at least once in their lives. Here you are both vulnerable and omnipotent at the same time. When you get there spontaneously, this state evaporates in seconds, but in guided immersive painting sessions with a guide - you learn to linger there, draw out ideas and charge them for realization.

There is no audience in the space of paintings, here everyone can become a creator and choose their own image. Moreover, art placed in the blockchain evolves like a living organism. In this way, the artist co-creates not only with the viewer, but also with the technology.

Following the ideas of Ernst Cassirer, who singles out the world of things and the world of ideas in the art of symbolism, Konstantin Poll connects these worlds with the symbols familiar to us all, and he himself becomes the key to this mystery of knowledge. In his work we see mythological and sacred subjects, esoteric and occult motives. The rhythm of the lines of the drawing can be guessed from the patterns of stained glass and mosaics. To these linear and colorful rhymes one sometimes wants to find a poetic analogy, and sometimes to let go of perception into the wild dance of chaos.

Konstantin Poll's research delves into psychoanalysis. The ritual practice of repetition - where one sketch becomes the basis for several different works - is often used. Ambivalent emotions, cyclical thoughts and feelings are brought together. In doing so, the image is sometimes reminiscent of the now popular neurography and sometimes of shamanistic drawing techniques.

A sense of otherworldly presence, maneuvering between clear reality and shaky abstraction also characterize Konstantin Poll's collages. Photographs of real places are synchronized with the collective unconscious, forming a special space in which the unity of disparate events and different points of view create a spirit of universal cosmism. This unites the artist with representatives of the avant-garde (cubists-futurists, Filonov) and resonates with icon-painting, which reflects not only the faces of saints, but opens "portals" through which a connection with the Higher Forces is possible. It was not by chance that the greatest theorists of the Russian avant-garde, Kandinsky and Malevich, understood art as a powerful conductor into the spiritual world.

Psychosphere is that image of space through which man and culture mutually self-determine and co-evolve. It is created by the unfolding of man's mental and cultural practices. This space becomes a prerequisite for communication between the author, the co-participant, the work itself, or even the material of which the work is a part. The mode of communication is seen here as a clot of semiotic space.

Bruno Latour's ideas of the pervasive sociality of all knowledge are also evident in the work of Konstantin Poll. When the artist manifests, "I am the Avatar", it is both his greeting to the world and his invitation to you to realize yourself as part of this world where there are no boundaries between the virtual and the physical. Between the past and the future. Between the creator and his child. This world is open to co-creation. This is why this world is Open Art.

CV.

Personal exhibitions

2022 - Russian Culture Festival, Sofia, Bulgaria.

2018 - ARTPLAY, media art "Konstantin Poll. Artist and creator of your dreams", Moscow, Russia.

2018 - Children Helping Children Foundation, charity exhibition, Burgas, Bulgaria.

Special Projects

2023 - Immersive Performance - Immersion, Apollinaria Theatre, Moscow, Russia.

2021 - Festival "Big Game", presentation of transformational game "Magic Worlds. Konstantin Poll".

The game is developed in co-authorship with the psychologist Natalia Voronova and is based on the immersion into the world-paintings of Konstantin Poll.

Participation in charity projects

2018 - present

2018 - ARTPLAY, media art "Konstantin Poll. Artist and creator of your dreams", Moscow, Russia.

Children Helping Children Foundation, numerous charity events, the proceeds of which go to children with special needs.

Collaborative projects, collaborations

2021 - development of a collection of T-shirts featuring drawings by Konstantin Poll

2020 - development of a unique collection of jewellery based on Konstantin Poll's work, in co-authorship with the designer Lyudmila Medvedeva-Pilipenko.

2019 - opening of a permanent exhibition and sale of paintings, designs and multimedia animated paintings by Konstantin Poll in Scenario Cafe Art Space, Moscow.

2019 - exhibition of works by Konstantin Poll and a show with artists presenting the original paintings that have come to life at Art Casinoto and Georgi Baev Gallery, Burgas.

2019 - performance by fashion house Konstantin Poll as part of the exhibition "Russian Artists in Bulgaria" at the Sea Casino Cultural Centre, Burgas.

2019 - opening of the Konstantin Poll Fashion House and Maria Markova Private Theatre, as well as the show C o L o R e V o L u T i ON, in which the artists are the original paintings brought to life, Burgas.