Andrei Kolkoutine

Andrei Kolkoutine ( _ru. Андрей Колкутин born 1957 in Smolyaninovo, Primorsk) is a Russian artist. In 1982 Kolkoutine graduated from the Repin Academy of Arts in Leningrad. Currently he lives in south western Russia near Turkey. The medium is usually oil on canvas, but Kolkoutine has also made sculptures and graphic works. Besides Russia, Kolkoutine has made exhibitions in Denmark, Germany, France and other European countries as well as the United States.

Style

Kolkoutine settled into his current characteristic style by the end of the 1980’s in which he mixes traditions from the Russian icons with suprematism from Malevich, cubism and naïve art. Kolkoutine states that he sought the special tones of colours which are seen in the old Russian icons, and he developed a method for making these tones by pasting a layer of neutral grey paint on the canvas before painting the colours. Suprematist elements are combined with figurative elements. Distorted buildings and playing cards may appear at the bottom of the paintings as well as Cyrillic letters. Frames in different colours surrounding the motifs are often oblique.

Motifs

Often the motifs are either stylized biblical or simple working people from the Russian province; according to Kolkoutine the biblical characters are in principle the same kind as the provincial people (Bjørnager, 2006). The biblical motifs are also a reflection of his origin; they are distinctly orthodox. Jekatarina Seleznjova states that in her opinion the fundamental question asks in his paintings is ”Why are we here?” (Seleznjova, 2007), and thus despite the culturally characteristic motifs Kolkoutine's paintings are supposed to touch something universally human. Kolkoutines paintings are both simple and complicated it is said.

References

*Bjørnager, Kjeld: Andrei Kolkoutine: Signs and deeds from the Russian Province. Ganymed Publishers, 2006
*Kolkoutine, Andrej: Pictures from the Russian Province (kartiny russkoj provincii
*Kolkutin, Andrej), Ganymed Publishers, 1997
*Seleznjova, Jekaterina. ‘Andrei Kolkoutine’ , 2007, Galerie Moderne, Silkeborg
*Galerie Moderne: ’Kolkoutine’ 2001
*Eveleigh, Romilly. ”Postmodern Icon” April 1., 2005

External links

* [http://www.gallerykino.ru/artists.php?id=12 Kino Gallery, Moscow]
* [http://www.galeriemoderne.dk/default.aspx?pageID=416&lang=da Galerie Moderne, Silkeborg, Denmark]