COSMOGONIC JOURNEY: EXHIBITION OF THE HONORED ARTIST OF RUSSIA NICKOLAI RYBAKOV

Dates: January 31 – February 25, 2018
Venue: Tsereteli Art Gallery
             21 Prechistenka street, Moscow

The exhibition presents over 50 works of Nickolai Rybakov, the renowned painter, graphic artist, enameller, Honored Artist of Russia, Member of the Artists’ Union of Russia, Member of the Russian Union of Photo-Artists, Full Member of Peter the First Academy of Sciences and Arts, Member of the Association of Fine Arts of France (SNBA), Member of the Siberian Association of Researchers of Primitive Art.

Nickolai Rybakov was born in the village of Kolobovo of Zabaikalsky Region in 1947. In 1972 he graduated fr om V. Surikov Krasnoyarsk Art College wh ere he later taught for more than ten years. Since the 1970-s he started his studies of archaeological monuments and disappearing settlements in the Republic of Khakassia and Chita Region, was involved in the research activity, became a participant of several ethnographical expeditions, travelled through the Siberia (Khakassia, Buryatia, Tyva, Altai, Taimyr), the Far East, the Gobi desert, Mongolia, Tibet, Italy and other countries.

Nickolai Rybakov has taken part in many creative competitions including the All-Russian competition “The Golden Brush”, All-Russian Biennale of Graphics in Kaliningrad, All-Siberian Exhibition-Competition of Contemporary Art, the Baltic Biennale of Graphics. He is a frequent participant of exhibitions in Russia and abroad (France, Germany, Italy, England, the United States, Japan, Sweden, Finland). His works are in collections of the State Museum of Oriental Art (Moscow), M’ARS Contemporary Art Center (Moscow), ERARTA Museum of Contemporary Art (St. Petersburg) and other museums.      

Trying to find the answer to the most important question relating to the unity of philosophical views and internal laws of plastic forms, Nickolai Rybakov goes to the mythopoetic imagery and stylistic integrity of the grandiose vision of cosmogonic and cosmological doctrines of the Chaos and Harmony, Darkness and Light. The formless, unorganized Chaos obtains a structured image of cosmogonic Harmony.

His “Cosmogony” cycles of works are formed by a common idea. They contain a spatial vision of the theme with complex structure. The mystique of the name has resulted in the scenic style of the “musical movement” of the color: from the deep blue to turquoise.
Rybakov’s  thematic cycles of the period of recent years can be combined in one stylistic direction close to abstract expressionism. In the artist’s spectacular discoveries the Light becomes the most important component forming the dynamics of the composition. The variety of techniques enriches the structure of the plane with complex reliefs and soft transparent scumbles on the picturesque layer of the canvas.  The sensitivity of the perception of nature becomes the basis for the completeness of metaphysical themes capable to express the cosmological constants by the language of painting and to reach the absolute integrity of philosophical views and aesthetic worldview of the artist.





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