The artist chooses a new language for his graphics, the plastic language of monotype. If in a drawing the presence of the author is always felt – his hand, breathing, feelings, the rhythm of his thoughts, his eyes – in monotype there is a feeling that there is no author. The hand is led by something beyond the self. As if the nature of the paper itself, the surface of the board, viscosity of the ink, all of them speak their language through the artist. The words of Martin Heidegger come to mind: "My tongue speaks through me". But the language of Anatoly Schelest’s monotype is not just the play of figures and texture, not abstract compositions; it is, as paradoxically as it sounds, the language of characters. Recognizable characters, rising from layers of memories, towards Torah texts.
...As said Jorge Luis Borges: all poetry is in a sense mythical – not everyone was able to find out that, which he managed to write. The characters in Anatoly Schelest’s graphics is born easily, as if the footprints of meditation. In silence, in the boundless descend or ascent, in prayer, in inaction, in humility, and the ability to listen – this is where the letters are born, which then unravel the mind, and feed the tradition that is imprinted in ancient texts."