Contact: Exhibition of Works by Mikhail Verkholantsev, Valery Bashenin, Natalya Vyatkina in Tsereteli Art Gallery

Tsereteli Art Gallery presents over 100 paintings, graphic works and sculptures by three artists - Mikhail Verkholantsev, Valery Bashenin and Natalya Vyatkina united by common aesthetic principles. They belong to the generation who made themselves known in the 1970-s – early 1980s. The artists of big experience and individual manner they are internationally recognized. In various years they graduated from the Stroganov Moscow State University of Industrial and Applied Arts.

The leader in this trio is Mikhail Verkholantsev working mostly in the engraving and painting. Valery Bashenin prefers painting, Natalya Vyatkina is a sculptor who is keen on graphic art. In their works one can constantly sense parallels both plastic and thematic.

Mikhail Verkholantsev (born in 1937) prefers xylography, compositional and stylistic skills of the designer, the knowledge of architectonics serve him as a graphic artist. Of special interest for the artist is a reproduction print: studied under old xylographers Verkholantsev cultivates ornamental features. His ability to preserve proportions and play with a scale enables him to brilliantly transfer the motifs of graphic compositions to watercolor works and canvases resembling cartoons for tapestries. He takes the subjects for his cycles of engravings from the Tale of Igor’s Campaign, Karelian epic “Kalevala”, music by Johann Bach and Claudio Monteverdi, the Biblical and Gospel stories, but antique topics predominate. The artist has illustrated the myths of Old Greece, works by A. Pushkin, I. Goncharov, F. Dostoevsky, I. Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov, I. Bunin, M. Gorky, A. Platonov.

In the painting by Valery Bashenin (born in 1943) is seen his connection with the Orthodox icon, Russian folk art of lubok and primitive art. We hear echoes of the Renaissance, Russian modern art and avant-garde. At the same time, the artist, who consideres himself a pupil of Mikhail Schwarzman, has been persistently searching for an expressive linear drawing trying to achieve the interaction of all the components with the general geometry of his canvas.

The sculptor Natalya Vyatkina works in wood and metal, takes a great interest in the china – she “sculpts” and paints it with cobalt. But her true passion is ceramics, the methods of working with ceramics the sculptor transfers even to her monumental sculpture. In Vyatkin’s horizontals and vertical lines, plastic volumes we sense her interest in cubism and expressionism. In the master’s works with their lyricism, harmony and verified proportions there is a real sculptural feature.

The three artists are frequents exhibitors in Russian and international art shows. Their works are in museum (Tretyakov Gallery, Russian regional art museums) and private collections in Russia and other countries.




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