Victor Safonkin

"I was born on 22 August 1967 at Saransk, the small capital of autonomous Mordovia. I enjoyed drawing, as all children do. Understanding my surroundings was still far away, but there were smells and feelings, huge rats and headaches. It was another life strongly influenced by nature. I had been watching and examining for a long, long time, before all of this shaped itself, after many years, into conviction and painting. It all surfaced from my subconscious mind... In the meantime, I finished secondary school and begun studying at technical school, where I gained a secondary education. It gave me nothing, and did not fill even a tiny part of my brain hemispheres. I felt useless. Rationalism and routine would have finally suppressed the psychedelic fever and fed my inferiority complexes, if it wasn’t for the striving of my subconscious mind. Taking root in my childhood, it burst through the frontiers of banality. 1990 was not only the year of sun eruptions, but also of my brain. My heart confessed to me and opened the gate of creativity. I crossed it forever, without looking back, with no doubt, lost for shadow and disbelief!"

Victor Safonkin is one of 50 contemporary artists featured in Metamorphosis 1 (beinArt Publishing).