Red Komar 

Luxembourg Art Prize 2022 (Merit Achievement Award Artist)

Up-and-Coming Visual Artist who Creates Surrealistic & Pop Art 

“Art is something that makes you breathe with a different kind of happiness.”

• ANNI ALBERS

My art, my work is the centre of my existence. After years of contemplation, I am doing what I love with all my being — and it is an exhilarating feeling. I have finished working on surrealism projects named Fata Morgana and Sisyphean Labor, and pop art projects named Golden Girl and Contradiction. In recent development, my painting, The Refugee is participating in the Luxembourg Art Prize 2022. 

The journey of reaching to this point where I can freely create my art has been a rough course. 

As far back as I can remember, I have loved to draw. Summers on the sand, winters on the snow, and beautiful scenic settings captivated my imagination. My relatives encouraged my craving for creativity, so I painted all the walls of the house where I lived with crayons and pencils. At school, children would draw dolls, cars, and flowers while I captured the whimsical and unusual worlds of my fantasies. As a result, my art always stood apart; in a pile of children’s drawings, the teacher always knew where mine were.

I was born in a small village in Belarus. I remember a steep, high river bank with a vantage point that allowed one to see a hundred miles across tree canopies. In spring, I loved listening to the sounds of melting ice, which reminded me of the stunning beauty of wildlife. I often climbed up the slope to sketch an abandoned fishing camp that stood among the gnarled trees as if suspended in time. When fall arrived and the first ice flakes formed on the river, the wind would blow at them, creating organ- and harpsichord-like sounds. I would spend hours listening to this mesmerizing music. The sounds stimulated vivid mental imagery that, at that time, I could not depict on paper. On the river bank, among enormous boulders, was a frail tree that resembled a human figure. It became my best friend. I would talk to it, sharing my experiences and asking for advice. My favorite topics were eternity and death. This was my special place, where I would cease to exist and instead feel like I was flying among treetops over the smooth surface of the water, observing the world from a different angle. I truly loved this place and dreamed of staying there forever.

My childhood was a particularly challenging time. I have lived with my grandparents for most of my life, and my mother was an infrequent visitor. I remember to this day how she visited us for a couple of weeks and left without even saying goodbye. I never saw her again, and this crushed me from the inside out. To others, I seemed strange, so I did not really enjoy the company of people and always sought solitude. I often ran away and wandered around abandoned houses, immersing myself in their dusty atmospheres overgrown with cobwebs. During summer nights, I would sneak out through my window and pass the time in an adjacent attic. I loved the feeling of fear and isolation. 

I have always dreamed of creating something extraordinary. But my grandparents were skeptical of my desire to become an artist. Their opinions led me to enroll in an architectural school, which seemed like a more pragmatic alternative. Studying was easy, but I started to doubt my artistic abilities in school. Since it was not a specialized art school, painting classes followed their own frameworks, which did not fit me well. Limiting myself to specific class requirements was difficult, and I would always veer off topic. As a result, my work was often criticized, and I rarely received the feedback I initially expected. All this undermined my artistic dream and discouraged me from pursuing it. Avoiding disapproval, I would hide my paintings in a closet, away from anyone’s sight. I loved to draw at night, opening my curtains to watch the lights go out in the windows of other houses one by one. 

After graduating from college, I had to live in rented apartments and moved frequently. I found monotony cumbersome, so I often changed jobs to fulfill my need for a change of scenery. The constant moving led me to develop a peculiar habit of leaving all my paintings behind when settling into a new home. I never signed them and imagined people I did not know becoming the unwitting owners of nameless treasures. 

Eventually, I realized that I had been depressed for a long time and that it had become my natural state. For a while, I enjoyed a state of happiness and peace when I started my own family, but my inferiority complex and confusion around my place in this world persisted. Then one day, I exploded. I decided to present to the world all the hidden works I had been creating for years and started producing new ones.

Currently, my work aims to showcase the countless facets of women from all walks of life, i.e., their playfulness, charm, anger, sadness, flaws, and beauty. It intends to remind women that they can find internal strength, conquer new challenges, and avoid getting cemented in paths that society defines for them. Every woman is beautiful, talented, and free in her own way. It just needs to be realized. Recent events in Ukraine and my first-hand experience with people affected by them have deeply impacted me emotionally, greatly influencing my work at this time.