CHARIOT
Artist: Anton Vitkovskiy
Series: Visual Rituals
Style: Tribal Expressionism / Light Reflective Painting
Year: 2026
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 70 x 80 cm (27.5 x 31.4 inches)
Depth: 1.5 inches
"Chariot" is the sixth painting in the Visual Rituals series.
The title is inspired by ancient chariot petroglyphs found throughout different regions of the world. These symbols represent one of humanity's earliest attempts to record movement, journeys, technology, and the relationship between human beings and the forces that carry them through life. In this painting, the chariot becomes both a vehicle and a metaphor — a symbol of movement through physical, psychological, and spiritual landscapes.
Inspired by prehistoric cave art, petroglyphs, ritual symbolism, and altered states of perception, the composition presents a monumental chariot-like form constructed from archetypal symbols, human figures, animals, eyes, and ceremonial markings. Rather than depicting a historical vehicle, the painting reimagines the chariot as a living symbolic structure assembled from humanity's oldest visual languages.
At the center of the composition stands a vertical axis connecting sky, earth, and the subterranean world. The axis resembles a ceremonial staff, a tree, a pathway, and a spine simultaneously. It serves as the organizing structure around which the entire image is built, suggesting a journey that moves not only through space but through different layers of experience and consciousness.
The paired figures on either side of the composition function as guardians, travelers, or reflections of one another. Their mirrored forms create a sense of balance and duality while emphasizing the relationship between movement and stillness, self and other, perception and action. Throughout the painting, eyes appear as symbols of awareness, observation, and vision, suggesting that every journey is also a process of seeing.
The circular wheels at the base of the composition reference ancient solar symbols frequently found in prehistoric art. Throughout human history, the wheel has represented cycles, continuity, movement, and the passage of time. Here the wheels support a symbolic vehicle that travels not across a physical landscape but through memory, ritual, imagination, and human experience itself.
Animals, birds, spirals, anthropomorphic figures, and geometric markings appear throughout the work as fragments of a shared symbolic vocabulary that has accompanied humanity for thousands of years. Rather than belonging to any single culture, these recurring motifs reflect visual patterns that emerge repeatedly across distant places and historical periods.
Ancient chariot petroglyphs remain significant because they mark an important stage in humanity's relationship with movement, exploration, and symbolic thinking. By revisiting this imagery within a contemporary context, "Chariot" reconnects an ancient visual symbol with modern consciousness, transforming it into a reflection on the paths we travel throughout life and the forces that guide us along them.
Created with layered mark-making, UV-reactive paints, glow-in-the-dark pigments, iridescent and metallic paints, the painting exists in multiple visual states. In ordinary light, under ultraviolet illumination, and in darkness, different layers of the composition emerge. Iridescent and metallic elements respond to movement, light, and viewing angle, creating an additional perceptual dimension that continuously alters the visual experience of the artwork.
When displayed with a programmed breathing UV light (sold separately), the artwork gradually shifts between states of visibility, causing symbols, forms, and colors to emerge and recede over time. This creates the sensation that the painting itself is breathing, transforming the work from a static image into a living visual experience.
"Chariot" continues the Visual Rituals series' exploration of consciousness, ritual, memory, and humanity's prehistoric heritage. It reflects the enduring human desire to travel, explore, create meaning, and leave symbolic traces of that journey for future generations.
Materials
Acrylic paint, UV-reactive paints, glow-in-the-dark pigments, iridescent and metallic paints on canvas.
Artwork Details
• Original one-of-a-kind artwork
• Handmade by the artist
• Signed and dated on the reverse
• Created in Moscow, Russia in 2026
• Certificate of Authenticity included
• Professionally restretched and ready to hang upon arrival
Shipping
International shipping is available worldwide. Shipping costs vary depending on destination and will be calculated separately after purchase. Please contact the artist for an international shipping quote before placing an order.
This artwork is currently unstretched for storage and transportation purposes. Upon purchase, it will be professionally restretched before shipping.
Ships worldwide from Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA.
Free shipping within the United States.