You will realize that St. Petersburg is not gray,
but rather colorful
You will find out what “lyrical expressionism” is
You will see something familiar in Andrei
Semenov’s touching characters
The artist invites the viewer to
immerse into the phantasmagoric atmosphere of his hometown, walk along it
streets and courtyards, and experience the unsophisticated poetics of the late
Soviet epoch.
Human memories are usually vague and
blurred, but Leningrad of Andrei Semenov is filled with bright tones and lively
details.
The works are painted in active
colors, with strong brush strokes and exaggerated plastic. Contrasting colors
create a special expressionist vibe.
Semenov’s characters resemble
caricatures, not cruel and tragic, but nostalgic and lyrical.
His simple heroes — homeless
people, overgrown scandalmongers in “Versailles” fur hats, and men in a
bathhouse — look quite comfortable on the canvas. They are happy with
small things — a shot of vodka, a mug of beer, a cheap cigarette, the
latest news and a boat trip along the channels.
The author does not “scourges” his
heroes for their mundane, sometimes pathetic joy. He kindly smiles and understands
their human weaknesses.
A common subject in Andrei Semenov’s
paintings is city dwellers and dense impersonal crowd. The salient features of
each personality are made just with a few strokes. Sometimes there is Rembrandt
van Rijn in the St. Petersburg crowd... Sometimes a sophisticated viewer will
see there a symbolic flying fish. However, the characters are percept not as
mystical revelations, but as fairy tales, folklore, and mixture of fantasy and
reality.
Born in Leningrad and living in St.
Petersburg, the artist could not help soaking up the beauty of his hometown.
Streets, firewalls and courtyards of the Northern capital became protagonists
of Semenov’s works. The representation of urban landscapes is broad and
diverse. The color spots turn austere architecture into a mild, as if molded,
picturesque mass.
Besides Leningrad the exhibition
features landscapes of charming villages, lovely gardens and even the outer
cosmic space.
Having brilliant academic education,
Andrei Semenov uses techniques of expressionist and naive art, conveying his
“national Leningrad identity”, personal nostalgia, admiration and love for
life, which are worth seeing. The exhibition “Back in Leningrad” will run
at Erarta Museum until 16 January.
https://www.erarta.com/en/calendar/exhibitions/detail/e27a74a5-99f2-11e6-a2dc-8920284aa333/
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario