His first steps in art were defined by conscious learning and then by absorbing the lessons of painters like Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, and Kandinskiy. The influence of painters of similar spirit is not simple imitation, but is a process of consciously assimilating numerous tendencies and directions not only in art but also in science and philosophy. His wide range of interest, embracing many layers in the art of painting, is a typical feature of Efi as a painter and thinker. In his quest for starting points, the painter often derives his inspiration from the remote past. Archaic life attracts him more and more because of its naive perception of the world. While establishing his own style and rendering his conscious themes, he comes to a clean-cut, reserved, sometimes almost monochrome range expression. The artist does not paint abstract compositions. But he reduces the profound world of his painting to a Sign, the meaning of which is clear to him, and is to be revealed to his audience. Sometimes his images are evoked by memories of childhood and by spontaneous perception of life. More often they are the result of accumulated experience, but these sings are always connected to humanist values, comprehensive and close to all people. " The sense of art for me", explains the painter, " is to bind together the revelations of great masters of the past as Leonardo, Durer, El Greco - and the discoveries of the great reformers or the 20th century."

Boris I. Asvarich
State Hermitage Senior Research Worker