At the BSUEL cultural center, a 22 year old Irkutsk artist Hedekels exhibition Computer Illustration 2D Graphics is being held for the first time, with about 60 Photoshop works. Viewers can expect bright unusual illustrations in an informal pop art style, from funny characters to dark and ironic images. The artist also said she plans to release postcards, posters, and T shirts.

At the cultural and leisure center of BSUEL (the Khudozhestvenny cinema), from March 4 to 30, the exhibition “Computer Illustration 2D Graphics” by the 22-year-old Irkutsk artist Hedekel is being held for the first time. The exhibition had been planned for a year, and at last the residents of our city can appreciate the amazing works in the style of informal pop art. This trend in visual avant-garde art of the 1950s–1960s emerged as an opposition to non-objective abstractionism and marks the transition to the concept of a new avant-gardism, “reveals the aesthetic values” of samples of mass-produced goods.
Hedekel kindly agreed to give an interview to the Irkutsk City Portal Irkutsk.ru:
D.L.: Khid, at what age did you start drawing?
Khid: I have been drawing with various painting techniques since early childhood, but specifically in the field of computer graphics for the last 3 years. The exhibition features about 60 works created with the Photoshop graphics editor.
D.L.: How much time, on average, does it take you to create one painting?
Khid: Mostly the process goes in the so-called speed art, that is, speed drawing, which takes on average from 20 to 40 minutes. Perhaps only 3-4 works took me several days of painstaking work. I don’t really like such work; my style is to pour out emotions, depict, show. People who are pleasantly amazed by my creativity often ask: how did I learn to draw such pictures? In fact, when I start drawing, I don’t really think about exactly what I want to convey to people; I just put the pencil down and start drawing something.
D.L.: Do you get fairy-tale inspiration?
Khid: I always have fairy-tale inspiration; probably it’s noticeable that reality is far from always present in my paintings. I probably have a hero invented by me that I like, a la Max Frei, sort of :-) and, accordingly, his characters, who often take part in my illustrations. They run out to take a look :-). As a rule, you can notice that all my paintings have at least one key character. In some paintings you can see a connection with arthouse cinema, which inspires me — it’s when you sit in a “coma” for a week after watching it :-). The heavier and more emotional the film, the better. In many — with Salvador Dalí, since I am a big fan of his painting.
D.L.: Let’s look at what exactly is depicted in your paintings, and what meaning exactly did you want to convey to the viewers?
Khid: What a leading question :-). It doesn’t matter what I wanted to show; you yourself look at what you want to see. I simply express my emotions, and what you see is up to you. That is precisely why I do not sign my paintings at the exhibition in any way, leaving it to people to give them names themselves. The exhibition features the painting “Rat on a Fishing Trip,” which many viewers like; it depicts a cheerful rat returning home from fishing with his dog. The illustration is called “Red Float” by me, but hardly anyone except me will notice it. The painting in dark colors, located above “Red Float” with the inscription “Life is Beautiful,” depicts a dragon talking to a person, and people interpret it in two ways: some believe that life is beautiful because the person is still alive and the dragon has not eaten him yet. This painting, from my side, was drawn for a specific person, and the illustration, from my and diametrically opposite point of view, is about strong, kind friendship.
D.L.: All right, as an example, let’s look at one of your paintings. In my opinion, it depicts a white moose.
Khid: It’s a giraffe!!!:-).
D.L.: Oops. Sorry :-)
Khid: I wanted to show a giraffe using a moose :-).
D.L.: Deep meaning, Hedekel! You succeeded :-). So in this painting you started drawing the prongs of a fork, then you realized that these would be moose legs, then you understood that it would be a moose, and in the end decided that it would be a giraffe? :-)
Khid: No, first the fork-legs began to appear, then these legs turned into giraffe legs, and so on. In my work, there is no such thing as first having an idea and then I depict that idea using these symbols…, and so on. I am not Chinese; it is the Chinese who express their ideas and stories with the help of symbols. Here it is different. Everything is more prosaic.
D.L.: In the illustration titled “Cupid,” little Cupid pierces an unattractive alien with an arrow; is the meaning of the painting that he thereby made this creature happy, and it comes to know love?
Khid: No, that’s not it :-). But if that’s how you see it, then I’m very interested in how other people see it, actually. It’s just a nanny uncle, and the baby is Cupid’s, what can you do. The nanny in slippers woke up because the child is misbehaving, came to him, and this child, like any other at his age, is throwing all sorts of nonsense at the nanny. And the nanny stands there, looking at him tiredly: “Eh... when will you finally go to sleep...”
D.L.: And in the next picture, what did the mouse do wrong to the cat?
Khid: What has the mouse been guilty of before the cat for several centuries already? :-). She is guilty only of wanting to eat. In fact, she is also shaking a finger at it: “No, no, don’t eat me!”
D.L.: Is the theme of your paintings in any way connected with Irkutsk?
Khid: There is no direct connection as such, but everyone will find something in them that resembles Irkutsk and something familiar to themselves. For example, this painting can be interpreted as follows: a fashionable Glanec store is depicted, located in the trashy district of some city next to a dump. A kind of bright, flashy showcase spot that is completely out of place in this location. This is our Irkutsk, our Russia, when, excuse me, everything around is “shit-covered,” and right there stands a boutique glowing with beautiful lights, on which “Glanec” is written. Because of spot development and the lack of sensible architectural planning. And in the spotted dog running past along the dirty street, viewers often see their own image. Or vice versa, there is the illustration “Tram” — of a clean city with happy residents, birds, and only one spot — the story of a sad stone gargoyle. She would like to fly, but this sunny city is not for her; it only gives her the chance to sit.
D.L.: Questions are appearing on the internet about whether it is possible to buy your works anywhere?
Khid: Around the middle of summer, I hope, author’s postcards, posters, and T-shirts will go on sale in Irkutsk stores and will be available to everyone who wants them. For now, if desired, you can contact me by e-mail: hedekel@mail.ru
At the moment, some of my works can be seen at the cultural and leisure center of BSUEL (the Khudozhestvenny cinema) from March 4 to 30 at the exhibition “Computer Illustration 2D Graphics”.