This painting in seven pieces will eventually get a backing and a new place on a wall.

There is a remarkable, expertly rendered time capsule in Igor Sobolevski’s lounge that’s filled with light and dark, colour and faces captured minutes, days and even years apart.

They are often startling works of art sketched, drawn and painted when Igor’s at his most creative.

“Art is the past, like footprints in the sand,” Igor says. “They are from a time that has gone” - snapshots often coalescing myriad moments on one page.

Igor’s big black art folio protects dozens of pictures produced over several years.

Pencil, pastel and acrylic fashion clear and tender portraits through to colourful expressions of emotion and internal reality.

A dark pencil triptych explores life, death and decay; long hair flows from a fine-featured woman in a deftly rendered pastel.

In some, figures emerge from explosions of colour. Others feature figures expressed as cubist, geometric shapes.

Among Igor’s largest works is a piece in seven pieces which, when joined, could easily be kaleidoscopic oil drops in water.

“What is my inspiration?” Igor says as he lays picture after picture atop his lounge table.

“It is how I feel, my expressions. It could be anything, but even when I have a plan it still comes out completely different to
what I expected.”

Igor’s often unexpected work comes for a determination to make the most of intermittent circumstances.

“My art comes from the ups and downs of bipolar. When I am elevated, I feel charged, I am expressive.

“When I am creative, I do little else.

“To me, I do not consider art to be a gift of bipolar. It is a symptom, it is a form of language to express what words cannot.”

Igor with his painting *Figure* at the hArt and Home Art Show at Tūranga, the city library.

Many of Igor’s pieces are close-to stream of consciousness creations. Some can take mere minutes, others much longer, Igor says.

The self-taught and talented artist’s last significant creative streak was three years ago. Right now, there’s no paper resting on the easel in his lounge.

Not that Igor’s creative output is limited to paper, pastel and paint. He’s also explored bone and wood carving and metal work.

Igor is now keen to further develop his skill with acrylics and to continue exploring cubism and expressionism.

And over time, he also hopes to liberate from his folio more pieces to show, to share his expertly captured “footprints in the sand” with many others.