I would like to explain a little bit of history behind the images. They are a part of the series of paintings I called The Toothless Bride Collection. They were inspired by a dream I had after I got engaged several years ago. In that dream I was at a wedding, when the bride started loosing her teeth. Being the person that I am (someone who likes to find meaning in everything) I decided that I might as well do some research and find if my dream was prophetic. I already knew that by Ukrainian beliefs (my native country is Ukraine) if one looses teeth in a dream it means that somebody close to them dies. Naturally, I was not too happy about that explanation. So I did what anybody in that situation would do - I went to the library. The only other explanation that more or less fit I found in a psychology book. The author of it was Dr. Sigmund Freud himself. Of course, his explanation was a male-oriented one. He explained 'my type' of a dream with a subconscious fear of castration or impotence. I took the Freudian theory as a basis for my own. Since there was no way for me to become impotent I decided that in my case it must mean a subconscious fear of loosing a part of myself, which doesn't necessarily means loosing a physical part of my body, (not that I'm not afraid of that). Then, I added the wedding from my dream to that and realized what I subconsciously new all along – the fact that I was afraid of marriage, since in my mind getting married and loosing a part of your identity were one and the same. Shortly after, I broke off my engagement and painted “The Toothless Bride” collection, as means of explaining how I felt to myself and those around me. My paintings express the confusion, reluctance to commit and overall terror of not being able to be myself anymore that I was feeling at the time.