Anatolii Nazarov has been working with wooden mosaic for several years already. His pictures are made of wooden cubes with surface area less than one centimeter. As the master says, nobody works with such tiny details in the world.
Nazarov’s first interest, which led him to marquetry techniques, was old Austrian and Polish charts for embroidery. Soon he began to make similar things on his own and then later, carried away also with mosaics, he decided that the embroidery charts can be used for other purposes – as graphic designs for wooden mosaic. One should only use wooden cubes instead of embroidered crosses. “It is like pixels in photo art: the smaller they are and the more there are of them, the better,” explained the artist.
Nazarov made his first picture in three months. It was an icon of Jesus Christ created of several species of oak. It is most natural in the collection of his works, because all the colors used in the picture are natural.
NATURAL BEAUTY IS IN ITS SIMPLICITY
It took Nazarov a little longer to create the picture Holy Sacrament, the largest in his collection. This picture is a candidate to be registered in the Ukraine’s Records Book. It consists of 40,000 wooden cubes and includes 20 tree species and 30 shades of colors. The picture itself has been finished long ago, only the frame for it is being currently made. Today the cost of such pictures is estimated at more than 10,000 euros.
“I developed my own approach of how to create a mosaic better, neater, so that the cubes were as small as possible and the picture looked like a jewelry work. If before I wasn’t able to create colorful pictures, today I have solved this problem as well. Blue, green, orange are unnatural colors for wood. If you paint it a simple way, with time paint can come off and change color. I managed to make the materials I use soak paint completely. It is my own secret. However, I would like to pass it on to my students.”
Nazarov does everything on his own. The machine tool used to make the details for mosaic was hand made by the artist. Only some details for his tools were made to order. The rest was assembled by the master himself. His is certain that all the complexity of work is in its simplicity. The simpler the mechanism is, the better and more accurate result can be achieved.
I DREAM TO MAKE A PICTURE THAT WOULD SHOW THE DNA OF UKRAINIAN PEOPLE
Neighbors and friends of Nazarov say that he loves wood and it returns this love.
“Wood has a unique feature – it can remember things. All of my pictures remember the area where trees grew, which were used to make them; they remember everyone who came up to them. Presence of this memory gene is possible due to the water wood contains. Wood is the only material that doesn’t loose moisture completely. Every piece of wood has a drop of water that preserves this information. I have a special attitude to water, wood, as well as a special attitude to memory,” said Nazarov. “Before I used to dream of creating a picture The Last Supper after famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci. But today I have another dream – to create a picture that would become a national symbol of Ukraine. In order to do this we need to combine the efforts of historians, artists, and develop a concept and an image. Besides, for this picture we will need to gather wood from all 25 regions of Ukraine. Today, unfortunately, there is no such large-scale art projects, which would unite historical and scholarly potential with visual speech. Besides, I would make this picture not with cubes but with hexahedrons. They have a special meaning – this is how a water molecule looks like and this is the shape of honeycombs. I am absolutely sure that this is exactly the most suitable shape for the Ukrainian national symbol. And because it will be made of wood from all over Ukraine, it will remember all of its history and all of its people. This could be a kind of DNA of Ukrainian people. But in order to implement this idea into life a sponsor is needed, who would be able to help me gather wood material. Besides, we need to gather many people together. But I still have hope that it will be possible to implement my project at some point.”
