“I don’t have a secret room where I have all these ideas on shelves, where I can just go in and pick one out. It doesn’t work like that. In my case, I do something because I have an idea or an image living in my mind and I feel it must be fulfilled.It is as if something is knocking on the door. It wants to become real so to speak.”
~ Gregori Maiofis
I am always looking at images with the secret desire to find something truly wonderful, special, and fresh. It rarely happens, but it did the day I came across this image. Wow, what is going on here? I thought to myself. A ballerina performing for a bear. Is this for real, or some kind of Photoshop manipulation?
It immediately seduced me because here was an image of such charm, humor, and whimsy that I hadn’t seen anything else quite like it. I met Gregori and was charmed by him too — and by his stories. He had befriended a circus trainer, and the idea just germinated. His star performing bear was named “Funt,” and over a period of eight years and four to five visits, Gregori created an extraordinary body of work, which I was very proud to exhibit for the first time here.
Finding a willing ballerina was much harder than finding a performing bear, Gregori told me. His genius was to put Funt on a chair, which made him the audience as the ballerina started to dance in front of him. Pure magic.