From St. Petersburg: Online Exhbition
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Gallery Henoch is pleased to present From St. Petersburg, an exclusive online exhibition highlighting Russian painters and their distinctive aesthetic. These artists use unique subject matter and virtuosic technique to convey a whimsical, tender, and at times surreal world that is personal to them.
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Olga Antonova completed her training at the Ilya Repin Institute of Painting in St. Petersburg, Russia. From time spent there she developed a unique style, one which reflects her Russian origins. The gilded tea cup still lifes evoke imperial Russian décor and suggest a forgotten era, just out of reach of collective memory.
While a skilled still life painter, Antonova also does figurative work in the form of self portraits. Often depicting herself with a sly smile, holding an elaborate bird and wearing exuberant outfits, her playful images invite us to imagine the narrative that might be evoking them.
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Igor and Marina also completed their training in St. Petersburg, receiving their MFA fromMukhina Academy of Art. Their work brims with Old Master style and Renaissance technique. Working as a husband-and-wife team, they paint large scale pieces that frame classical figurative subjects with more contemporary patterned backgrounds. Their work is at once evocative of Russian iconography while incorporating abstract shapes reminiscent of Expressionists like Kandinsky and Chagall. This reinterpretation of art history makes for strange and wonderful results, as their human subjects float in front of geometric, fresco-like backgrounds.
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Russian painting is known for its historical subject matter, but it is also known for pioneering modern styles of abstraction and avant-garde art. The art produced by Antonova and by Igor and Marina adds to the Russian artistic canon with paintings that are careful studies of tradition yet dare to push the boundaries and leap into fantasy.
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