Color Art

Art work and images © Konstantin Grabowski

Konstantin Grabowski was born 1965 in Siberia, and lives in Germany. He graduated in painting and graphic design from the University of Omsk, where he studied from 1985-1991.

His oils and acrylics on canvas span colorful abstract, semi-abstract and figurative painting that is modern, yet has a somewhat dreamy quality.




The works are typically rich in relief and textured with multi-layered paint.

Grabowski began exhibiting in 2000. He is represented by galleries in Europe and in the U.S.



Von einem Katalogtext für Konstantin:

" Ein gutes Bild ist wie gefrorene Musik, eine Landkarte vergangener Bewegungen. Paul Klee sagte: 'Das Auge folgt den Wegen, die im Werk für es angelegt worden sind.' Aber es ist noch mehr: Schwere wird unschwer, Leichtigkeit unleicht, der Raum selbst wird aufgehoben und wie von falschen Beweisen entlastet. Es ist so wie der österreichische Schriftsteller Robert Musil sagt: 'Man hat noch eine zweite Heimat, in der alles, was man tut unschuldig ist.' "


"The function of art is to make that understood which in the form of argument would be incomprehensible."

Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957), renowned Romanian early-modernist sculptor


[See also: Art for our sake]

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A Russian Tale

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Добры́ня Ники́тич

Dobrynya Nikitich,

Medieval Russian Knight
and Dragonslayer


The theme that Palekh artist Dmitry Bonokin has chosen for this miniature painting is the ancient Russian bylina (Russian oral tradition, folk legend) "Dobrynya and The Dragon". This bylina tells how the mighty bogatyr (Russian knight) Dobrynya Nikitich killed the evil Dragon for devastating Russian land and for kidnapping the niece of Prince Vladimir.

In the middle of the composition is the heroic figure of Dobrynya, of the noble warrior class, sitting on his faithful steed and trumpeting his horn to announce his victory. Just under Dobrynya's figure, the artist depicts the body of the dead Dragon.
To the right we see Prince Vladimir and different citizens of Kiev triumphing and saluting their hero, while on the left girls are laundering clothes in the Puchai River (according to ancient legend, the citizens of Kiev were baptized in the waters of this river).

In the upper left corner of the composition the artist writes in gold paint this excerpt from the folk tale:

"Wherever you were brought from, each of you go in your own direction, and the Dragon will not touch you, the evil Dragon has been killed!"

In the upper right corner of the composition there is another quote in gold letters from this bylina:

"The blood of the Dragon flew from the east down to the west, never more will the Russian and Christian people be imprisoned, for the Dragon was killed!"

Historians believe that the personage made imortal by this tale evolved from the real Slavic warlord Dobrynya, who led the armies of Svyatoslav the Great and tutored his son Vladimir the Fair Sun.


Dmitry Bonokin is a young artist and graduate of the Palekh Art School of Miniature Painting. This particular piece is Bonokin's diploma work, signed, titled and dated 2002, and was shown in the Moscow exhibition "Origin and Contemporaneity" in 2003. It is pictured in the exhibition catalogue. The painting now resides in the Ana Elsner Collection, U.S.A.


[More about The Legend of Dobrynya Nikitich as portrayed in Russian Miniature Art]

[Read the entire story on Wikipedia]

Human Body Plastination - Science or Exploitation

Thanks to a technology called plastination, the general public now has a chance to physically view what only doctors and scientists could once see: the very real and intricate architecture of human anatomy and individual organs, unaffected by decomposition.


Actual human bodies are preserved by a process called polymer impregnation,whereby water and lipids in biological tissues are replaced by curable polymers,silicon rubber, epoxy resin or polyester (all commonly known as plastic).

The plastic is initially pliable, enabling the bodies to be placed in different life-like positions.Depending on the plastic used, it can be hardened by heat, light or gas (see image right) so to retain their shape.

It takes from two to six months to transform a cadaver into a full-body plastinate. Organs are identical to their pre-preservation state down to the microscopic level, providing durable specimens invaluable for study and analysis.

Properly plastinated specimens are completely dry and odorless.

Before plastination, the only method for preserving human cadavers was by storing them in formaldehyde.


[Further reading: Body Worlds]

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The 'Universe Within' is a travelling public exhibit of plastinated human bodies that has been shown in Europe, the US and Japan, presented by the Chinese Society for Anatomical Sciences and the Museum of Life Sciences in Beijing.

It is allegedly supported by Beijing University and the University of Vienna.

The human bodies in this display were said to have been donated to the Museum. Nobody knows who they are.


The assertion by the exhibitor is that these corpses were unclaimed and unidentified at the time of death. Non of these claims can be verified.

One may question whether the cadavers had been properly obtained in a nation where individual rights are not always respected.

With ticket prices ranging from $15 to $20, with a discount for children (!!!), to view the preserved remains of real people, this exhibit of flayed and dissected human corpses artfully exploits the technique of plastination:

One male body stands holding his entire skin draped over a hanger like a coat, his mustache and beard still on the flayed face.

Another, muscles exposed, is poised to throw a baseball.

Down the hall, a man sliced down the middle, so that his internal organs will be displayed, is in an odd minuet with himself, one half reaching out to the other.

What was once a 5-foot-10-inch woman is cut in pork-chop-thick wafers from skull to toes and stretched out to 20 feet in what is essentially a CAT scan made real.

This exhibit and others like it, where bodies of dubious provenance are used for commercial exploitation purposes, have met with huge regional and international outcries of protest on moral and ethical grounds.


[See also: Gunther von Hagens' website with online store]

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