The works of Vyacheslav Strannik are a "storyboard" of infinity. Fragment by fragment, a scroll of space unfolds, hidden from idle gazes by the effects of the atmosphere. This is reality beyond an opaque layer of gas, meaning air, which we are accustomed to considering transparent. The borders of the painting’s plane only conditionally enclose the manifested image, as its continuation is felt beyond the edges of the canvas. Each new work is one of the many viewpoints of a single landscape that the artist’s gaze wanders through. They are alike, much like waves that, returning to the sea, leave a different drawing of water and foam on the sand each time.
The titles Strannik gives to his works are like a sound accompaniment to his painting, and they should not be taken too literally. They are conditionally associative, as if one seeks to define the nature of one phenomenon through another, completely different in nature. Behind the dimensionless concepts like "Ra", "Om", "Tara", or "Meditations" stands the artist himself, alone with his visions.
If the growth of a mineral can be considered a plot, then, in this sense, Strannik’s painting is plot-driven. The plots of his works have a dynamic that is not readily perceptible to an eye accustomed to rapid edits. Their tempo and rhythm are so ritually restrained and unhurried that the concept of time feels irrelevant here.
In their form, the symbols, signs, and images that create the plots of the artist's paintings are not the result of any direct inheritance from humanity's cultural currents. Strannik avoids imitating canonical forms which, despite their perfection, do not rise above mere stylization in a contemporary artist’s interpretation. Symbols that once formed the matrix of the universe in ancient times seem to emerge from his subconscious memory into his field of vision. These symbols, like seeds, encode the genetic formula of life—not in its biological form, but in a much broader sense. The artist’s gaze is mesmerized by the mega-geometry of eternal forms. He has an impeccable sense of tectonics, which adheres to the timeless rhythm of this geometry. The rhythm of his compositions and forms naturally resonates with the rhythm of ornaments and the architecture of humanity’s oldest cultures, which once formed a single stream.
Strannik’s paintings withstand the test of hyper-scaling without losing quality. If, as an experiment, one were to project one of his works onto the sky, we would have a full-fledged backdrop for this massive "screen." It could even be said that magnification reveals the true scale envisioned by the artist within the humble format of the canvas. In this context, the "mega-graffiti" of the Nazca desert comes to mind. Simple geometric forms, magnified to sizes that surpass the limits of human perception, take on the meaning of an intriguing mystery—something that elevates the familiar shape beyond the realm of the ordinary.
The compositional framework of Strannik's paintings is primarily based on the combination of fundamental geometric figures—square, triangle, circle. From this seemingly limited set of building blocks, the artist creates countless combinations that share a common ancestry yet are individually unique. Whether consciously or subconsciously, he mirrors nature, which, in creating an infinite variety of similar forms, never repeats itself. Perhaps it is this principle of "dissimilarity within similarity" that saves the artist's work from the monotony of uniformity.
In most cases, the structure of his paintings resembles that of a crystal, ignoring biomorphism. This is a clearly constructed space, assembled from solid modules, which has a multi-layered structure. From the perspective of academic painting, Strannik's works have a decorative and planar character. But this is only from that point of view. In reality, it is a space that centrifugally expands in all directions. And since the limitations of the two-dimensional picture plane and the properties of paint impose their own rules on the artist, he overcomes them in his own way. By visually layering planes on top of one another, he does not subordinate them to one another, nor does he turn them into decorative appliqué. Each has its own pulse, its own speed of flight within the shared harmony of the movement of celestial spheres. This principle is also maintained through color, as the artist rejects the linear order of planes, which would traditionally be read from the cold colors of "distant" planes to the warm ones of "closer" planes. The order of colors he uses does not follow linear logic.
The images in Strannik's paintings, as well as their structural elements, are rooted in humanity’s ancient memory. Motifs of wings, eyes, fire, anthropomorphic silhouettes, as well as space itself, are subject to the clear tectonics of primordial forms. But the purism of pure geometry is too sterile for the living world as the artist senses it. The centrifugal expansion of the universe is accompanied by the constant emission of energy. It is these energies that animate the contours of cold crystals with trembling halos of flowing curvilinear lines and rhythms. Energy, like movement, radiates from within each form. Thanks to this, it grows, blooms, and shimmers with fantastic colors.
The dynamic nature of energy generates plastic forms, more suitable for the dynamic and fleeting realization of one of its potentials. Among such forms, the oval and its modifications frequently appear. The oval is a dynamic circle. The circle absorbs everything; it accumulates and retains. It is the ideal form of infinite growth. The oval cannot grow indefinitely. Sooner or later, it must inevitably burst, like a seed into a sprout, like a bud into a flower. It is the perfect shell for birth, like the chrysalis of a caterpillar from which a butterfly will emerge. After all, it is in such an "oval mandorla" that Christ is depicted in the scene of the Transfiguration. And it is probably no coincidence that Strannik's ovals often resemble a radiant, shining mandorla.
The compositional order of the artist's paintings is, in most cases, characterized by techniques of symmetry and balance. Here, one could draw analogies with folk art or classicism, but such an analogy alone would give little understanding of why the artist uses this particular compositional approach. To understand this, one must first grasp what the principle of equilibrium in art represents and why the concept of harmony has been historically associated with it. Simple life observations can offer answers. A tree growing in a field, with sufficient fertile soil and light, develops a crown that is almost symmetrical, striving for the ideal shape of a sphere or cone. A tree of the same species growing under adverse conditions will grow crooked, twisted, and disproportionate relative to its vertical axis. The same approach to understanding form can be seen in the classical sculpture of ancient Greece. Here, balance relative to the central axis and the proportionality of parts to the whole represent the ideal of the free citizen of the polis. A slave, whose body was deformed by hard labor, like the tree that grew in unfavorable conditions, does not conform to this beauty formula within that value system. In both examples, the principle of freedom stands out as a condition for forming a harmonious shape. It seems that this same motivation guides Strannik’s hand when he constructs his paintings.
Ultimately, all the previously mentioned principles and techniques of creating his paintings are merely the scaffolding upon which the main character appears—the color. It is through color that everything on the picture plane interacts, and a new cosmogonic plot is played out. Pulsation and radiation are one of the main almost tactile sensations that awaken the powerful energies of colors. Combinations of cold tones do not bring coldness here, and warm ones do not burn. Even in the tense color conflicts, the artist avoids aggression and causes no pain. Again, this is the result of the refined balance that only true inner freedom can grant.
Vyacheslav Strannik’s works are undoubtedly not entirely, or not only, paintings. In one of their facets, they represent a unique visualization of alternative life projects. Some of the paintings can be seen as architectural in volume. Others can be imagined as large-scale visualizations for decorating a planet. But perhaps the most utopian project of all is the project of consciousness, which pulses and expands without fearing to lose its fenced-in laws of the world. It is the color diagram of a free soul.