This work was kindly donated by Lennie Lee from the Lennie Lee Collection

Nikolai Kozin - CSM 2009
"My normal approach is a spontaneous start with meticulous finish. I hardly ever plan what I’m going to do, just begin with gesture and rhythm and see where it takes me. Elements, like loose associations and metaphors, fit into place, as I go.

I am focused on human experience. It’s often the darker side of it - death, violence, melancholia. Sometimes it’s just abstract. I am not pursuing semblance. I often prowl in the margins of recognition, in the dark. Life is not a life drawing class - it's more than that.

I am trying to learn to see beyond an image, to get to the state of flux, to what you can see in the end of “Zabriski Point”. There’s emotion, there’s energy, there’s humour, lots of things happening at the same time, not all of them rational or even knowable.

I want to bring this out, not hide it behind a finished product."