Visionary and Theosophical Paintings: Grev Kafi
A week ago, I discovered the sublime paintings of an artist couple from Moldavia. The visionary painters Evdokia Fidel’skaya and Grigoriy Kabachnyi (born in 1932) work in co-authorship under the pseudonym Grev Kafi. They have created a huge oeuvre of incredibly subtle and luminous paintings, inspired by theosophy and the sacred teachings of East and West.
I took the following information (partly translated with Google Translator) from a Russian website about their paintings with a beautiful slideshow, from a Russian website about Grev Kafi, and from the Grev Kafi Museum project in Chisinau. Thanks to the artists Grev Kafi for allowing me to publish this blogpost and and thus help spreading their paintings.
After graduating from a University of Fine Arts in 1963, the artist couple lived 15 years in Tian Shan Mountains located between China and Kyrgyzstan. They met there the monumental work of Blavatsky and it changed their lives. Later, the acquaintance with the Agni Yoga Teachings (“Living Ethics”, Nicholas and Helena Roerich) gave them another profound inspiration.
However, for a long time, they had to work in secrecy, and the creative efforts of their work was not understood nor accepted, but they continued to work intensively. They lived very humbly, and all the money was spent on the canvas, paints, books, travel.
At the invitation of the Ministry of Culture of the Moldavian government in 1978, the artists moved to Chisinau. Their house is a creative workshop in Chisinau, a real island of harmony which is constantly visited by people from all over the world.
In the late eighties the painters’ art received a rising success, and they began to participate in Moldavian and Russian exhibitions and organised exhibitions of their own. Their creations can be found in many cities of the world and at the Theosophical Society in Adyar, India.
But the real success came when they created a series of paintings on the theme of “The Secret Doctrine”, H.P Blavatsky, the “Living Ethics” and the phenomena of the subtle world, and they recreated the 22 Great Arcana Tarot.
To give an impression of their work, I created a powerpoint presentation (28 MB), here as a PDF (4.8 MB). When I searched today on the web, I found many more paintings of Grev Kafi on a website in Russian dedicated to their paintings, just click on the links in the centre or on the left navigation, and also in the slideshow mentioned above. They are not included in powerpoint.
Many paintings are stored in a old dilapidated storage facility. For their salvation and safety, it is planned to build the “Grev Kafi Museum” in Chisinau, Republic of Moldavia. If you want to support this important Museum project with financial aid or other help, please find more information /bank account details on the website. On their website, you also find a number of videos. Here is the YouTube channel of Grev Kafi and here a collection on Google+.
And below you find a little slideshow with some of the theosophical paintings of the artists and a video. Enjoy!
A visit at their home:
May 12th, 2015 at 4:59 pm
Fabulous, Ludger!
Fellow travelers from the country of our great heroine, Helena Blavatsky. I absolutely love the pictures of Mahatma Maruvu!
May blessings continue to flow to these inspired artists…
May 12th, 2015 at 7:12 pm
Yes, Julie, they are really fellow travelers on the way to sublime heights! And very fiery workers