…The painting is a thing. Its environment is the human being, the interior, the wall, the frame. A good painting requires hard work that can be going on all my life. The appraisal of quality of a painting is its completeness. The content, substance of a painting is the variety of forms, colours and their interaction on the canvas as a whole. The style, the movement, the school - these are conventions. Theories hinder work. Full freedom. The painter is beyond the time, the painting is within the time - it is a thing.

Alexey Vermichev