- How did you come in contact with Gertsev Gallery?

- Mr. Gertsev came to the London Art Fair where I was exhibiting with my gallery in Glasgow and he saw piece of my work in the catalogue and he liked it. And then he came to have a look at more work and gradually he became interested in what I'm doing and how my work is progressing, and bought some paintings.

- Did he buy the most recent paintings of yours, straight from your studio?

- Yes.

- What do you expect of your collaboration with Gertsev Gallery and this particular show?

- To me the main thing is the interest to see work from a Scottish artist in another country. And it's very good for the way I look at things, the way I see things. And probably it will affect my paintings in the future. Everything you do affects your painting.

- Did you have time to see any contemporary Russian art here?

- Not very much. Actually I much prefer just to walk around the streets rather then go to galleries. I like to see what everyday life is like. That's where I get my inspiration. We did a lot of Russian history at school, I used to read books of Maxim Gorkiy and Dostoevskiy and I'm very interested in the way people live their lives, the way they cook their food. I think art in Russia is obviously thriving, it's really growing at the moment.

- Your own works can be called semi-abstract, right?

- Yes, I would say so. First I have an idea of something and then I like to make it into a kind of poem. I don't care what something looks like. I try to paint what something is rather then what it looks like. The spirit of the thing, the soul of the thing.

- Your art can be called very lyrical and very intimate in a way. Do you think this kind of art will be in demand in Russia now?

- My art is about feelings, it's about emotions, and feelings and emotions don't have a nationality. They're not anything to do with any country: everyone is sad, everyone is happy. Emotional basis is something I feel very much in tune with. People speak through their feelings in Russia, and with a great emotional intelligence. I'm at home with that, I understand it much better than cold intellectual responses.

- And speaking about visual culture…

- I can see that there's a quality of Russian art which is decorative, I can see that working.

- So you call your art decorative?

- Not that I mean just being a decoration. I hate that kind of thing. But I'm interested in surface qualities. I am really concerned about the surface of things, the way a painting looks is important to me.

- Can you tell briefly about the way you work?

- It's very complicated technique-wise. I either use a very good quality linen (and when I paint on linen, I don't use paper) or I paste paper on board. I apply it to surface, building up a texture with it. And then I use a kind of dry acrylic paint that also builds up layers. Ultimately I get a very complicated layer, although I intend the whole overall surface to look quite simple. I like this contradiction of a very complicated surface and the simplicity of the image in the end. You have to be very concerned when you're creating something so that it is stable and permanent. The technique should be very secure, it has to be securely done.

- Do you associate your art with the art of previous generations, with St. Ives group, for instance?

- I have looked very closely at St. Ives art, and I'm very interested in Peter Lanyon, in Roger Hilton, Ben Nicholson. These are the artists I've looked at. I'm a still-life artist, so in the core of everything I'm interested in still-life. So yes, I do tend to look at those artists. And besides I'm a huge fan of Patrick Heron. I like the art that was done between wars and in the 1950-s, when people were not painting for money - I think it is very important. Now there's such a big culture of making a quick buck from painting, and it really shows in art. In the 40-s and 50-s people did not expect to sell their paintings, and there was a truth about it, and that what's I really love - when people are not getting mixed up with the money business.

- You're a still-life artist. Do you have some objects of your special liking that travel from painting to painting?

- I do. I collect antique kitchenware, the older the better and the simpler the better. I use the same image over and over again.

- And why still-life?

- Still-life appeals to me because you can change it. It's the nearest thing to abstract painting. You're just taking shapes and you can construct them, rather that working from what is in front of you.

- Do the paintings at this present show form certain series or are they bits of different stories?

- When I start a painting I usually do three or four or five, sometimes up to ten, in the similar kind of series. It's almost like a group of poems or chapters of a book. I hope they link. But sometimes when I'm feeling calm I have series of calm paintings, everything is based on how I feel. If there's something complicated going on, I paint a very complicated painting, and the next one is likely to be complicated, too. So they do work in groups.

- So these paintings here dating from 2000 to 2004 are obviously parts of different groups.

- Yes. I would say that there are probably three of four groups of paintings here. And the more you look at them the more they make sense as groups.