Alexander Zadorin is by nature a conqueror, conqueror, winner. He is open to new experiences, like a young child. He masters new territory, new uncharted space with the greed of a true traveler, navigator, explorer. Moreover, he does not assimilate, does not fit into the new space, but conquers it, fills it with himself, conquers it at any cost — not with aggression, but with pressure, ingenuity, sharp mind, fantastic memory, charm, generosity, anecdote, romance, whatever. He must be at the center of the world, at the center of any company, the world must revolve around him. He loves himself and wants to be loved, and all at once and without exception. And in this egocentrism, he is touchingly similar to a child. He wants to be loved, and he achieves this, because he is endowed by nature with such vitality, such an artistic universal talent of the artist, such an assertive active charm that it is impossible or almost impossible to resist, to resist.

When I write “space”, I mean not only geographical space (he masters it with enviable perseverance and interest), not only biographical (he changes the territory of love, starts new families, gives birth to new children, finds new friends, builds new houses and workshops), but primarily an art space. Art of Latin America, eagerly absorbed by him since the time of his service in Cuba, Picasso for many years, old masters, naive wooden sculpture, Spaniards, Rubens, Rembrandt, Russian icon, avant-garde, Greek archaic. If you start listing everything that is assimilated, digested, burned, enters the flesh of his talent, then, perhaps, you won’t finish.

Sasha told me that other people’s work often turns him on more than his own. Perhaps the most striking example of such a plant, such a creative expansion, development and appropriation of foreign territory — these are three amazing books of his drawings drawn directly on the pages of already published, printing photo albums and catalogs. Beautiful black and white photographs of architectural views of Prague, for example, become an impetus, a testing ground, scaffolding for the creation of many dozens of even more beautiful graphic compositions. The proposed circumstances under the reckless pressure of his improvisations and fantasies are transformed into such expressive compositions that would hardly have been created on a blank sheet of paper. A powerful composer, directing, compositional gift, in my opinion, is the strongest side of his talent.

His gift is universal and happily coincided for many years with clay, with the universal possibilities of this amazing material. It seems that he did and tried everything — pottery, vases, paintings, glazes, engobes, painting on tiles and monumental panels, reliefs, sculpture of small and very large forms, understood, felt terracotta, fireclay, faience, porcelain, stone mass. He does not like boundaries and easily breaks the boundaries of genres, creating things that very organically combine different things. His best works are sculpture, painting, and graphics at the same time, and this is his sharp qualitative difference from his colleagues. Painting, painting cannot be removed from its volumes, like wallpaper, just like its volume, relief cannot be separated from a light, fast, sensual line, traced, scratched, pressed, imprinted in clay.

The same themes, techniques pass, flow from work to work, live different lives. Graphics, often very colorful, very rich in tone, almost always picturesque and full of ceramic subjects. Painting is very graphic and so rich in relief, texture, texture contrasts that it is very sculptural. The sculpture is picturesque and saturated with graphics, painting, often with a very active open color — red, green, black. Virtuosity, lightness, artistry are demonstrated by him tirelessly — this is an endless master class, you are constantly called to witness, to participate in this maestro, this game, this fun process of narcissism. This process is naked, exposed, and shamelessly and lovingly put on display. Of course, everything is not as simple and easy as it seems.

The process of working with a thin layer, invented in many respects by him, Zadorin, requires, in addition to precise improvisation of pressure, indentation and extrusion of clay, also an accurate tailor’s calculation when cutting the layer. Moreover, the formation of volume, cutting, cutting and gluing — everything happens despite the fact that a thin and often very large layer already stands vertically, in the form of a flattened cylinder, by itself, based on weight. And in order to sculpt, create a form and maintain balance, statics, construction, both intelligence, experience, and cold calculation are required. If you break a very delicate balance just a little, the volume will fall, develop before your eyes, disappear, die. It is very similar to the process of a surgical operation. With Zadorin, the process of the operation is forever imprinted on the patient, as on a manual. The whole construction, the whole cut, all the seams, moldings, gluings and withdrawals of clay are visible, not hidden and even emphasized, they are part of the aesthetics — part of the creation, the diary of the creator, the subject of his pride.

The diary of the author“s life is not only in how he does, but, of course, in the first place — what. And he does — sculpts, draws, writes — what surrounds him. Women sitting on chairs, lying in bathtubs, standing by a mirror, women with each other, with children, with dogs, with cats, with men, families, horses, horsemen, saints fleeing to Egypt, wise men, gypsy wagons, people dancing people playing jazz, flying, undressing, entering through doors, drinking on verandas, people on bicycles, still lifes, shells, fruits, vases, fish, portraits of friends, wives and children, cottages, houses, ruins, Mexico, the Judean Desert, Syria… His women are passive, sitting, lying in bliss, combing their hair, resting, reminiscent of Ingres” Turkish Bath. But the characters are active, moving, not sleeping. Hands are raised up to hold the work, as in Self-Portrait, spread apart for flight, like in Icarus, extended forward to hold the horses, as in Quadriga — they feel, master, embrace space.

I am always amazed by his extraordinary wit, ingenuity, childish ability to include anything in the game. These are posters with Lenin, on which the rich chiaroscuro of the portrait is played up, used, turned into a still life or nude (in this game, as always with Zadorin, there is also a share of calculation and pragmatism — firstly, the posters, as visual propaganda, were printed on very good paper and were unbelievably cheap, and secondly, drawing plot scenes on the faces of the leader, he understood that it would be both successful and in demand). These are real chairs and wooden boxes on which ceramic people sit, these are cast blots of enamel on ceramics or on canvas, then painted in the form of heads. These are collages made of corrugated cardboard, where the graphics look especially rich, these are real doors, through which clay children look out. These are impressions in clay of everything that is possible — rugs, lace, rags, boards, children’s stamps, numbers and letters, leaves that turn into draperies, clouds, the sea, trees, etc. These are inverted stretchers that turn into his painting into real window frames for still lifes and portraits — dozens, hundreds of transformations and metamorphoses of ordinary objects into objects of art. And all this is so free, so naive and smart at the same time that it takes your breath away.

Sometimes I lack weight in his works, some kind of nerve, doubt, bitterness, spark of ignition to make the engine of my empathy work. After all, there is another side to life. After all, besides the world below, there is the world above, and it is not noisy there. However, it is not yet evening, and maybe he will master, conquer this space as well. But maybe I’m wrong. He is so provocatively positively charged for life that he does not want, cannot, and will not think about death. We lived for a long time together in the same hotel room in Dzintari, Israel, and I am a witness to how he often suffered from insomnia, was so excited, excited by daytime life, that he was not ready for peace. Here is the universal Matisse throughout his long life sang it so harmoniously, joyfully and courageously that even cancer did not bring a tragic note to his art. On the contrary, his last huge applications made in bed are just a cry of delight. Our Kustodiev has the same fate. And Rubens? And Picasso? So I, perhaps, will again begin to list his favorite artists

One of my favorite works of his is the 1986 sculptural portrait of Katya “Rest”. This, in my opinion, is a real, very good sculpture. Harmonious, large-scale, very portrait and very versatile. Separate volumes are so musically and so convincingly brought together, the contrasts of thin, soft, openwork, torn and massive, heavy, brutal are fascinating. These legs, in house slippers, slightly infantile, so artlessly thickening, rounding at the knees, are so touchingly and defenselessly attached to the horizontal of the floor and to the vertical of the chair of the thigh. This head, so simple, down to the scheme, and so plastic and so similar to Katya. And this thin relief of the engobe next to the clean, bare surface of the formation. I remember that when I saw it after the first firing, I liked it so much that I advised Sasha not to paint it as usual, but leave it white, and I am glad that he agreed and only enriched it with the contrast of white enamel with the matte surface of fireclay. I like everything about this work — it’s a rare success when everything coincides and closes — a real masterpiece.

For a long time now he has been painting a lot and seriously and has already gone a long way along this path. I think that, nevertheless, it is his graphics that are the most accurate and shortest way from his soul directly to us, without intermediaries in the form of clay, canvas, paints. When he draws, it seems that his angel drops everything and leads Sasha with a light and very flexible hand.