About

      Art for me is when reality becomes a dream and a dream becomes a reality.  

       I started expressing myself through the visual art very early in my life while living in a provincial town in former Soviet Union. The outside everyday life was bleak and ordinary, but as soon as I started drawing my first little pictures I discovered a new world of fantasy and imagination. Here I wasn’t required to follow any rules or dogmas but simply could let my creativity flow freely. I was discovering the key to the secret world in which I had a complete artistic freedom and a time for the pure enjoyment of the creative process itself.

      About 30 years ago I abandoned watercolors,  pastels and acrylics and started experimenting with “painting”  on my computer with the Photoshop.  Eventually I replaced digital “paint”  with the layers of photographic digital data.

I photograph anything and everything to collect my characters, objects, colors, tones and textures from the world around me in order to use them as a “paint” to express the world that is inside.

When I come up with an idea for a new Photo-Painting I go through my photo-library to pick what I need. I create hundreds of layers and put them together in a painting like image.

     The first reaction I get when people see my Photo-Paintings is: “What is that? Is this painting or a photo?”  Well, it is exactly what it sounds like - a painting done by the photography. I look at it as a modern way to paint.

                                                                                            Nik Kaba