Редакция журнала "Искусство и Жизнь"

Ivan Kelarev (b. 1996) — illustrator, engraver, mason. Creator of the Postcards of the Worlds art project. Developed a concept behind the Black Cube mixed media installation. More than 200 limited-edition prints are kept in private collections and funds in Russia, Europe, and America.

Artist describes his work in a comprehensible term of HEURISTIC GRAPHICS (from Greek, I find, I discover) — expressive black-and-white graphic illusions inspired by visionary experiences. In the world of illusion silence reigns, and details are the primary focus.

Ivan Kelarev carries out a large-scale work to create the strangest 333 engraved illustrations for the 12 volumes of the bestselling books by philosopher and esotericist Carlos Castaneda, related to his Path of Knowledge doctrine. Castaneda remains one of the brightest thinkers with esoteric, mystical, and occult orientation in the second half of the 20th century, characterized by the development of postmodernist ideas against the backdrop of scientific, technical, sexual, and psychedelic revolution in Western society.

The artist set out to expose characters, iconic places, events, phenomena, "entities", and abstraction in the linocut and provide an opportunity to dive deeper into the semantic content of the text in books, encouraging the viewer to solve a non-standard problem of a semantic puzzle. The project is remarkable, too, due to the fact that The Teachings of Don Juan is illustrated for the first time since it was first published in 1968.

As a form of visionary creativity, Heuristic graphics is a look into the abyss of human nature, resting on the depths of hidden foundations of the spiritual developement of the awakened artist.

Graphic illusions transfer the viewer to different realities, the clue to which lies in the name of the engraving. In the world of illusion silence reigns, and details are the primary focus. Quietly contemplating the artworks, the viewer of the high speeds era is wrapped in the light of beauty of ordered chaos. Black and white engravings remind the viewer of a dual world interconnected by a special bond and representing a boundless space, that mind recreates in a certain shape on a sheet surface.