A drop of water falls in an ocean wide,
A grain of dust becomes with earth allied;
What doth thy coming, going here denote?
A fly appeared a while, then invisible he became.
Omar Khayyam
The mystery of time is impossible to solve. However, the ancient sages tried to disclose it at least through symbols and allegories, presenting time in tangible images. One of such symbols in ancient Greek and ancient Roman mythologies is Kronos, a fierce merciless God devouring his own children. Time gives birth to days and nights - days are its sons, nights are its daughters - and immediately devours them completely. Centuries and thousands of years disappear in the depths of insatiable time.
The composition “Mother Time” is a philosophical comprehension of the category of time in plastic art. The author interprets time as a generative element. For this reason time is called Mother.
It seems that the figure of the woman, like mirage, materializes in space. The woman’s head is covered by a light cloak seemingly fluttering in the wind. Like the wind it frames the face, which carries features of different human races. In the sails-like folds, which represent the air element, are hidden strong hands, not in the least resembling woman’s hands. They are holding a cracked egg and an arrow like the scepter and the orb, the symbols of life.
Mother Time’s feet are joined together in one point as though they are going to nonexistence. On her legs she has a pattern: an octopus. The basis of the seat is braided with seaweeds. These are the symbols of the water element. The woman’s belly looks like an overripe foetus, which is a symbol of soil and fertility. The navel is accentuated by an embossing in which two flows meet and form a turbulence: this is the way the birth of stars looks like in the photos of space.
Mother’s body has double hips. This detail is a conventionality similar to the fifth leg of a bull in ancient Iranian sculptures. In the present composition this is a symbol of growth, formation, movement, which never stop.
On the woman’s neck there are signs of three world religions: David’s star, a cross and a crescent. These signs serve a special purpose. The existence of the three world religions determines the policy of states and the perception of the world of separate people within the time limit that is given to them for living.
“Mother Time” is the realization of what sets the world in motion today, what was going on yesterday and what will happen tomorrow.
The symbols used by the sculptor are ancient. However, they haven’t lost their meaning in modern culture, just like the feeling of deficiency of time, allocated for a person’s life and creativity, has not lost its acuteness today.
E.Y.Bagina, MA