Why do artists who see the world in color regularly “reduce” it to the level of black and white? Why such a simplification when the variety of colors, the richness of textures and plans of the environment are reduced by them to a combination of two colors, usually laid out in two, three or four tones? When only mascara, monochrome tempera, charcoal, pencil and whitewash on paper replace the splendor that is observed around and pleases the eye? Is such drawing not flawed, and how can one explain this stubbornness in the choice of means, obviously scarce, for conveying the visible?

Everything is simple. The world around us is figuratively redundant, rich and beautiful. He himself is the result of creation. And if the artist is given to be close to creation (and we are also curious in our desire to examine), to be honest with ourselves, it turns out that the basis of the visible is the simple ratio of rhythms, shapes, surfaces, organized through light and tectonics of arrangements. These simple relationships are extremely diverse, and every time this makes the visible unique, unforeseen. And the unexpected is revealed, like the discovery of your visible, and through you, to many.

Simple is better and simple to display. And the artists Andrei Kim and Igor Ermolaev have been doing this for a long time: both have been working on images for a long time. How much they look, how much they work. As it turns out, in considering the world, these artists are not lazy. They like to just watch. It takes a long time to look at what is happening on the sheet in front of them, and on what is comparable with the image outside this sheet. The question of the correlation of the visible and the depicted is undoubtedly the main one for artists. Do they manage to consolidate the obvious connections and constructions of the observed world in drawing, around which the plastic idea spins, which, as a rule, causes interest in drawing? It doesn’t matter if the image takes on the character of an abstraction, like Kim’s, or the maximum resemblance to the image, like Yermolaev’s.

The work with the material itself comes to the fore. At Kim it is extremely difficult - layering and washing off numerous layers of paint; often the sheet is literally tormented by these procedures. Ermolaev primitive - monotonous pencil striking on paper. But the result, in a way, is the same: I want to look at the works about as much as they were created. Artists lead the eye of the viewer along the sheet, surprise him with the richness of texture, vibrating surface, intricate rhythms, when the calm movement of the author’s hand alternates with pauses ending with a clear gesture, and the accent in the form of a spot, dot or stroke completes the next plastic phrase.

What is this for? The answer cannot be found. You can guess, or think of someone, that drawing is such a way of creativity. And if so, then a way to once again reveal to the world what he did not expect. This is a painful attempt to recall our main destiny - a long time ago, in the madness, left by us.

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Andrey Kim. Nida. 2009. Tempera on paper, 42x60