Works by Irene Starzhenetskaya and Anatoli Komelin in Two Men in a Boat Exhibition

The Two Men in a Boat exhibition in the exhibition halls of the Russian Academy of Arts features works by artist Irene Starzhenetskaya and sculptor Anatoli Komelin.

The Full Member of the Russian Academy of Arts, winner of State Prizes of Russia Irene Starzhenetskaya belongs to the generation of “young artists of the 1970s” who introduced in home art a new vision of history and modern life as well as new stylistics.

At the exhibitions in those days stood out her portraits and self-portraits based on acute and dynamic perspectives, on imaginative expressiveness of forms. A graduate of V. Surikov Moscow State Art Institute, she made her own synthesis from works by her teachers A. Gritsai, Dmitri Zhilinski and created her individual pictorial manner.

Since the late 1970s, she has long domiciled in Tarusa in her country house that became her second studio. Compositions by Starzhenetskaya are distinguished by creative freedom, vigorous elements of color that are hallmarks of her style.

Sculptor Anatoli Komelin tries to find his original way in art too. His favorite material is wood though he also uses stone, metal and other hard materials. In his sculptural works are combined minimalism and archaism. Moving from objective forms to abstract ones, he expresses emotional experiences, spiritual values and eternal things: a landscape, a tree, a flower, Annunciation, etc. Through light touches of paint on a rough surface strange compositions out of parts of logs obtain warmth and miraculously begin to live and breathe.

In 1989, this family of artists was involved in the rebirth of the Resurrection Cathedral in Tarusa. Starzhenetskaya painted the iconostasis while Komelin executed woodwork. In 1991, they took part in the interior decoration of the Church of Resurrection in Bolshaya Nikitskaya street in Moscow.

Irene Starzhenetskaya and Anatoli Komelin have been honored with an award of the Russian Orthodox Church – medal of Sergi of Radonezh 1 rank, as well as with a golden medal of the Russian Academy of Arts.






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