A Few Thoughts from Our Solitude (2026)

Несколько мыслей из нашего одиночества

Lesha Stolyarov’s creative world is a collision of extremes: paintings forged with bitumen, visuals scorched by gas burners, and abstract works that leave the average viewer baffled. But now, adrift in a creative drought, the artist yearns to explore themes of divinity—using artistic tools he’s never tried before. In a bold leap, he journeys to the remote Spaso-Sumorin Monastery in Totma, planning to plant an installation deep in the Vologda snow. The monastery houses just one inhabitant: Father Feodosiy, a former painter who abandoned his brushes forty years ago to devote himself entirely to faith. You’d expect him to embrace a fellow artist’s quest, yet this cutting-edge creator meets his match in an equally “extreme” figure—one rooted in Orthodox tradition. Can contemporary art and ancient church doctrine find common ground, or will the clash between radical new visions and two-thousand-year-old customs prove irreconcilable?