I can describe my work process roughly as follows: first of all, my method is a slow one and sometimes it takes years to complete a project. The initial idea of lighting must be inspired by nature. For example, the theme of "Autumn in Nebraska" flashed in my mind when I witnessed during my stay there an approach of a sudden storm. Dark clouds gathered rapidly, a cloudburst followed and then in a few moments the rain was gone and a rainbow spanned the horizon. This was in 1965 and at that time I managed to complete two sketches. Then I started to work on a big realistic canvas and re-worked it several times. Years later I began to abstract this painting and to balance the sun spots, but only in 1980 was I finally able to finish it when I broke up the painting into individual sections with varying lighting, showing simultaneously the approaching storm, the receding cloudburst and the sparkling rainbow.

In my still life "Evening in Santa Fe" I have also used different moments of lighting. I remember I had been working on this painting all day and when toward evening it appeared to be completed a ray of the setting sun touched its foreground. The entire composition was transformed and I felt I had to add this effect. But, my work was not finished yet for when I glanced out the window, which was facing northwest, 1 saw in the distance mountain peaks glowing in the last rays of the sunset. These glowing mountain peaks promptly became a part of the background of my still life, which initially, I felt was rather ordinary. The following days I worked on bringing into a harmonious relationship the three different lighting effects I now had in my painting. In the end, I believe, my final version of this still life had become far more exciting than the original one-light-effect composition.

In "Sunset in Santa Monica" the beginning and the end of a sunset can be seen at the same time. Such themes can be painted only from memory where time itself turns into an image and where an entire sunset can melt into one enchanting vision. Whenever a new idea, stimulated by something I have seen in nature shapes in my mind I paint either a sketch or a full-size painting which then goes on a shelf, where it might spend several years until the original idea has matured and begins to sparkle with the vibrant colors of imagination.

In my paintings I treat the problem of form fragmentation similarly to Cubists, with addition of a fragmentation of light as well. By introducing into my canvases an element of alternating light moments, I free them from the naturalism of momentary lighting (photography!). This way in my work I combine the Impressionistic method of painting from nature with a reliance on memory. This results in canvases containing the element of passage of time without any detriment to the colorful perception of the moment. To arrive at an individual way of seeing takes a very complicated thought process and a great deal of corrective influence of emotions.

There comes a point in one's development when Nature stops being a motif for Placid observation and one senses that it conceals something else and this "else" intensifies the emotions and injects a disquietude into a seemingly serene landscape. Volumes acquire sharpness of facets, colors become intense and contrasting, spatial planes alternately close in on the forms among them or begin to melt and empty. Flat images emerge first creating an idea of depth. A dramatic concentration of matter takes place, which aspires not only to a momentary existence but also to a durable place in life for which it is willing to fight. Here the world begins to open up, to widen and extend both into the future and the past. There is a beginning of life here in some Big Space and Big Time. These panoramic landscapes consist of numerous elements, which are brought into a harmonious coexistence on a higher plane and the viewer experiences satisfaction not so much from individual ability to commune with nature but from the fact that he can contemplate creation.

Constantine Cherkas