Aleksei Sakharov. I was born and raised in the north of Russia, near the White Sea. I spent my childhood and teenage years, from age six to eighteen, in a taiga village located along a river and surrounded by expansive wild forests. I also lived for six months in the southern part of India. I have been residing in Portugal for the last five years.

I earned a master’s degree in social Pedagogy. In my career, I have served as a development director, trainer, and coach, and have spent fifteen years in charitable and public organizations, including the Red Cross and the UN Youth Council in Russia. Currently, I am engaged in an art experiment that incorporates elements of psychology, philosophy, and painting into my work.

I am currently a resident artist at the cultural association "Arroz Estúdios" in Lisbon. I do not have formal education in art. My approach to painting involves expressing my vision and emotions through colors and forms on the canvas, then interpreting what these expressions reveal about my inner self. In doing so, I essentially paint my life.

On the canvas, I experience complete freedom and independence. I allow my hand to move as it wishes, without fixating on the choice of colors or the layout of spaces; I simply trust my intuition, impulses, and the spontaneous movements of my hand. This approach to painting breaks away from the stringent standards of academic art, yet it possesses its own unique value and is fully justified.

I paint my life as it unfolds and invite you to do the same. Each of us is unique and irreplaceable, bringing our personal narratives to the canvas. Begin painting your life, exploring your inner world. I am confident that you will find joy and make many discoveries!

I wish for as many people as possible to express their emotions using a variety of colors, techniques, and materials. Have you noticed the array of forms and shades that emerge, each unique and distinct from the others? These variations beautifully depict the unique inner worlds of each individual.

I prefer not to discuss my paintings because painting itself is a language without words. You can simply look at a painting and feel something. This is my wordless message to you, conveyed solely through colors and shapes. Observe, feel, and understand what I am communicating.

This website showcases my first serious series of works. The collection, consisting of 14 paintings, is titled "On Totalitarianism and Democracy in Colors." Throughout the year, I used only five basic colors: white, black, yellow, red, and blue—the colors of the flags of Russia and Ukraine. In this series, black symbolizes war, the color of evil.

As an artist, it is impossible for me to work within the totalitarian constraints of these five basic colors without mixing them or creating new hues. The color transmission in the paintings would be limited. I aim to be completely democratic in my artistic work, striving to see all the colors of the rainbow and their various shades across the full color spectrum on my canvases.

Work on the collection began in February 2023 and was completed with the last painting in April 2024. The paintings are untitled and numbered from 1 to 14. Beneath each painting, I left small notes that occurred to me during the creative process.