Palaver interview

Palaver, journal of interdisciplinary research housed at the University of North Carolina -- Wilmington, interviews Dmitry Borshch:

Would you call these pieces interdisciplinary?  Or are they mixed-media?  Or, perhaps in the realm of art, these are the same. 

Roughly the same.  Technique makes these pictures interdisciplinary, I call them digital cyanotypes.  Here is the digital part of my process: I draw on paper, scan, reverse the drawing in Photoshop and print it on acetate, thereby creating a negative suitable for contact printing.  Then the traditional cyanotype process begins: coating the paper with a prepared solution and making an exposure in sunlight or under a lamp.

These 'photographs' are based on drawings that belong to a series.  Please talk about its title and meaning.

‘Exiled from Truth: Nine Allegories by Dmitry Borshch’ is the title under which some allegorical pictures are collected, possibly more than nine: the series continues to develop.  They are united by color, style, and technique, so I view them as a homogeneous collection of drawings.  Allegory, drawn or written, is a product of that mind which regards truth as existing-in-absence: it does exist yet is absent from our view.  Allegories like mine would not be needed if truth were openly present.

How do you find a subject or theme to draw? 

Good, timely themes for a picture are found everywhere -- internet, newspapers, food bills.  I make written notes regarding a possible theme on the back of those bills, and usually accompany them with a little sketch.  After a period, which could last weeks or months, I go over what was sketched and all the writing.  Whatever excites me the most then is developed into a fuller work.