Al_Rum

Al_Rum (Aleksei Rumiantsev) was born in USSR (Russia) in 1980 and now he is a digital nomad. He is a multidisciplinary artist whose main focus is on the theme of human transformation in the contemporary world, the interaction of archaic adaptive patterns of human behaviour and the information environment. This theme is reflected in several personal projects, numerous exhibitions and the Biennale of Contemporary Art around the world.

Until 2020, he experimented a lot with various media, combining assemblages, installations with new technologies. However, a severe eye injury and subsequent internal crisis brought him back to his unique art style, which he used to have at the beginning of his artistic career. The style is called affective realism that means the immersion in the flow state and rejection of logical thinking and pre-invented plots in favor of honest instinctive expression of artist's emotions through allegorical images.

The loss of vision allowed the artist to activate the internal reserves. The main focus in the works has shifted to the feelings a person experiences in the process of transformation. Returning to his artisitic style and working in the field of digital art led him to the world of Metaverse, allowed him to become an active participant of the international NFT community and expand his exhibition presence in virtual galleries.

A few years ago, I made the artwork "My own cage". I applied the style that I used to have at the beginning of my art career. It was a kind of nostalgia. It was a man's portrait with a cage over his eyes, and the cage on his left eye was beginning to collapse. The painting was dedicated to our internal limitations which are the strongest cage which we imprison ourselves in! I took a photo of myself and the artwork instead of my head and posted it on IG.

A few weeks later, I injured my left eye very badly and went to the hospital. At the same time, a woman saw the artwork on my IG page. She was very inspired by my artwork, because she was a psychologist and worked with such limitations of people and their thinking. She bought my artwork and put it in her office as the best illustration of what she deals with every day.

She also noticed the paralel between my damaged eye and the eye being released from the cage in the artwork. She was sure this was not accidental. I started to come out of my own cage and this was my path of epiphany! So, now I'm researching this theme in my art, in my life and I'm actually an art project myself.