Why? Reason one:
I started to sort through the plastic bags, in which I used to store my old drawings and sketches. The fact is that I drew a lot. 10 drawings a day. I would set myself this challenge. If I managed fewer, then the following day I would have to make up the difference. It was like a sport.
I drew on thick watercolour paper with pen and ink.

 

Then I realised that I would drown the fruits of my creativity in these bundles. I didn’t have a workshop. Nor did I have any plastic folders for the paper.

My work first went into print in 1975. “Nedelia”, “Moskovskii komsomolets”, “Komsomol’skaia pravda”, “Sobesednik”. “Literaturnaia gazeta”, “Literaturnaia Rossiia” …

 

Then on came the 90s. The White House. My work appeared in the “Rossiyskaia Gazeta”, whose editorial offices were located there. And then I worked for ‘Kommersant’. For 15 years. I had to draw a lot, and I started to use A4 writing paper. There were plastic folders and good quality files, and I started to store my drawings in those.
And I tidied away the older ones, in my new artist’s studio, on a shelf under the eaves. I took some of them to the dacha.

 

My drawing style changed. I was searching for a long time, until somehow it all just came together. All this searching lay in those plastic bags. I then climbed up to sort through the backlog, and it seemed amusing to me. This was where it all started. My search…

 

Why? Reason two:
What am I to do with it all?
Lately I have been bothered by this one thought.
An artist creates, creates, and then just goes and dies all of a sudden. And everything that he created — the canvases, the files of drawings — gather dust whilst lying on the shelves. Their relatives torture themselves, not knowing what to do with it all. It seems such a shame to throw it away, but not all of it ought to be sold off. So, I decided to sort out the selling myself. Not all my work of course.
No, no, I am going to live for a long time yet, but I still continue to draw. Producing folders of drawings. So, this is an exhibition-sale. On the cheap.

 

Andrey Bilzho