ALEXANDER LOZOVOY (B. 1949) Seafront promenade

mixed media on canvas signed in Cyrillic ‘Lozovoy’ (lower right); signed, titled and dated ‘1999’ (on the reverse) 65 x 89.5 cm (unframed) ‘One day I was looking at my paintings through a microscope and saw that a single brush stroke consisted of organic, natural, connected transitions from colour to colour, which could not be said about the painting as a whole. I began to try and experiment in order to achieve the same effect on the entire canvas. I started using special emulsions, combining tempera with oil painting, using auxiliary materials, like concentrate of oak bark, white from chicken eggs, bee pollen and others. All this was not my invention. Oak bark and alder bark were used in ancient Russia to write book miniatures, honey and eggs were used in Europe in the Middle Ages. I have simply changed the proportions and used more components in one work.’ A. Lozovoy