Serezha Galkin’s Artistic Philosophy

These are my personal thoughts — a brief reflection on a Russian word that, to me, holds an entire philosophy of feeling and of being alive.
The word is “переживать” (perezhivat).

In English, there is no direct equivalent. But its meaning can be approached through a constellation of verbs: to experience, to feel, to go through, to live through, to endure, to suffer, to internalize, to process, to inhabit, to embody, to dwell on, to grieve, to ache, to transform, to surrender to, to face. Each of these touches a part of what perezhivat means — but none capture the whole.

If we break down the word itself:
• “pere-” suggests repetition, going through something again, a cyclical passage.
• “zhiv” is the root of the word for “life” (zhizn).

Together, it means: to live through something, to re-live, to be alive within an experience.

It’s not just about having an emotion.
It’s about inhabiting it.
About being made alive by it.
It’s not linear. It loops, it stays, it transforms.

To “perezhivat” is to carry life inside an emotion, to let it echo through you again and again, until it becomes part of your being.

I often think about this word when I think about art. And this is, for now, how I see art — how I chase it, and what I aim for in my own work.

I return to this idea often: that art is not something we always explain, but something we feel through. That it isn’t always born from meaning — but from action, from impulse, from vision.

I don’t say this to diminish the power of meaning or message in art. On the contrary — I deeply value it.
But to me, art begins before meaning.
Most artists don’t start with a title.
They paint the picture first —
then they name it.

So when I create, I try to offer not explanations, but experiences.
Something to be lived through — not solved.
Felt, not decoded.
Survived. Embodied.
Inhabited like a moment of life itself.

-- A text by Serezha Galkin