Sardonic Smile: Back to Myself

This is a very important painting to me. With it, I’m coming back to myself as an artist.

I went through a long, honestly horrible period where I tried to fake it - painting things that meant nothing to me. I tried to make “beautiful” things, appealing things, things that could sell. It hurt me more than I expected. I tried to become something I’m not, and I could feel my whole personality shifting in a worse direction. None of those pretty paintings even sold - they’re generic, overpopulated, disgusting, dead. Indicium mali gustus in art. I even painted pet portraits. Thinking about that still makes me want to throw up.

With Sardonic Smile, I’m back. Back to something honest.

The Image

It’s an oil portrait of a human - I don’t even know if it’s male or female. I didn’t think about it that way. Now when I look at it, I catch myself thinking maybe I painted something like my animus in a Jungian sense… but I don’t want to make it too romantic. It feels more like something that just came out.

Rigid sardonic smile. Pale, luminous and almost angelic eyes. Water hemlock in the background. Skin disturbed, pierced with nails - some old and rusted, some fresh. Something contradicting existing at the same time.

Technique

Technically, I built it in a very classical way.

I started with a burnt umber grisaille to lock in the values first. After that, I went in with layers and layers of transparent glazes, slowly building depth and letting the light come through the paint. That’s where the luminosity comes from, especially in the skin and the eyes.

I also played a lot with different mediums to push texture. The wounds are glossy, almost sickly wet. The rusty nails are dry, matte, chalky, almost dead. I wanted that contrast - not just visually, but physically.

Why Hemlock, Why Nails

The idea actually started very simply, like a scientific curiosity.

Water hemlock is one of the most toxic plants and it can grow anywhere, quietly. Its poison - cicutoxin - attacks the central nervous system. It basically removes the body’s ability to control muscle activity. The result is muscles locking, violent seizures, the body going into complete tension, and eventually death.

Tetanus does something similar but through bacteria - Clostridium tetani. It usually enters through wounds, historically associated with rusty nails. The toxin blocks inhibitory signals in the nervous system, so muscles contract and can’t relax.

That’s where the “sardonic smile” comes from - Risus Sardonicus. A forced, rigid grin that has nothing to do with happiness.

That contradiction stuck with me. A smile that is not a smile.

I also had this childhood fear of rusty nails. When this idea came back to me years later, I literally wanted to redo my tetanus shot immediately.

How It Changed While Painting

At first, the idea was very simple. I just wanted to show the effect - the smile - and maybe put the hemlock plant in the background, add a few rusty nails to make the background more interesting.

But once I started painting, new addition came to me - I started putting the nails into the flesh. Not as a symbol at first, just as an action. I wanted you to feel it - the moment the nail goes in, the swelling, the infection, the way rust and skin almost become one. And the inevitability itself.

Then came the idea of nails coming out from inside the body. Those are different. They feel alive in a different way - pressure, movement, blood pushing out. The wounds are fresh, almost pulsing.

At that point, it stopped being just about a “scientific fact.”

What It Became

This is what always happens to me.

I start with something small - something that just catches my attention. But during the process, the painting starts teaching me something I didn’t consciously put there.

Now I look at it and I’m asking myself:

Is it me? Is it some inner figure? Is it something buried deeper?

Are the rusty nails things forced into us from the outside - expectations, pressure, чужое? And the ones coming out - are they things that were always inside, just finally breaking through?

And that smile… what is it?

Is it pain? Control? A body betraying itself? Or something else entirely?

Why This Matters

I didn’t sit down with a “message.” I was just fascinated by a disturbing fact and a phrase - its majesty Sardonic Smile. (Oh man, I love the way it sounds and the way it is written.. I am always hungry for languages.)

But the meaning showed up anyway.

That’s how I understood something very simple: I have to create my own work. Not trendy things, not “what sells,” not what looks right.

Because when I fake it, I hate it. And when I follow something that actually disturbs or pulls me in, the painting becomes smarter than me.

And that’s the only kind of painting I want to make.