This is what Moscow artist Dima Rovel wants to say in his new work "self-portrait" (2015). He seems to show that you can save your "I" in a world where "everything around seems so distant, a copy taken from a copy made from another copy" (Chuck Palahniuk "Fight Club", 1996 - ed. )

"Self-portrait is me in all colors, in all emotional and physical manifestations. You know, partly it carries the idea of preserving its true essence. Now it is very difficult to truly remain yourself: globalization has reached the underground, to its most sacred parts.
Unfortunately, many people from the creative environment begin to make clichés, which is expressed in creativity itself and in social behavior. I don't think that all artists should be closed-minded social phobes, it's just ... all these social networks, mass culture ... "

It seems that the picture is a set of contradictions that are in each of us. A subtle combination of different emotions: both sorrows and joys. They are expressed in the use of bright, dark colors, which together form a harmonious whole - the image of a person who is not afraid to openly express himself. The strokes are sometimes sharp, because they rebel under the author's hand, sometimes they are blurred. The author plays beautifully on contrasts, making his work bright and lively. Maybe because he cannot figure out what is happening in his soul, and, probably, no one is given to do it.

The very image in the picture seems sad: perhaps the author arrives in himself and listens to his feelings. At the same time, perhaps, there is a subconscious fear in him from not knowing where contemporary art, in general, and its art, in particular, will go next. Into the non-existence of imposed formats or along the untouched path of new ideas?

One thing is clear that in his works Dima Rovel does not want to become a plastic cup, a disposable pop culture, but strives to be seen and heard by as many people as possible. This gave impetus to writing a self-portrait in such dynamic colors.

"Self-portrait" is such a surreal "yes" to freedom of creativity without boundaries and a decisive "no" to mass stereotypes. Which path will art take? Time will show.

Text: Natalia Pushchinskaya
Photos courtesy of Dima Rovel.