The Painting as a Route, Nature as a ReflectionThePaintingasaRoute,NatureasaReflection

Every morning began beside a fast mountain river. Cold air, movement, silence — all of it was less a warm-up for the body than a tuning of perception. In that state we were not looking for a subject; we were finding form: for feelings, for states, for an inner landscape.

By day — trails, passes, waterfalls. Every point on the route became the starting point for a new sensation. We walked, and at some moment we stopped walking away from something. We were walking towards ourselves. It was there, in the mountains, by the fire and after the banya, that the first brushstrokes appeared — not as technique but as response.

The subjects were simple but real: clouds over a slope, grass underfoot, a reflection in water, the warmth of a palm. Animals — wild and domestic — as symbols: the horse as freedom, the cow as acceptance, the ground squirrel as lightness. All of it found its way into works made by the participants’ own hands: I was there beside them, prompting.

Flowers, streams, summits, sun, fog, rain — in seven days we lived through a whole inner rainbow. And every painting carried home became a reminder: of meeting yourself, of breathing at altitude, of a beauty that lives both in nature and in a person.

Next art treks into the mountains:

Elbrus region, 10–17 August

Dagestan, 22–26 August

Write with any question

Elbrus region tour programme

Dagestan tour programme