PAINTING OF THE MONUMENTALIST: SOLO EXHIBITION OF THE PEOPLE’S ARTIST OF RUSSIA ZURAB TSERETELI IN VOLGOGRAD

Dates: April 29 – June 06, 2021
Venue: Ilya Mashkov Museum of Fine Arts
            37 Chuikov sreet, Volgograd

The Russian Academy of Arts in partnership with Ilya Mashkov Museum of Fine Arts in Volgograd present an exhibition of more than 50 canvases by the People’s Artist of the USSR and Russia, President of the Russian Academy of Arts Zurab Tsereteli.

The work of Zurab Tsereteli is well known in the region’s cultural cluster. Ilya Mashkov Museum of Fine Arts has twice hosted solo exhibitions of the eminent artist and sculptor and contains his two paintings “Flowers” and “Still Life with Watermelon”, as well as St. George the Victorious sculptural composition in its collection. According to Tatyana Kochemasova, the researcher of Zurab Tsereteli’s creative work, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, “the master’s art is characterized as magical realism”. The past contacts with the present, the minor details obtain significance, there is a return of almost sacred value to the simplest objects. The visual ellipsis of the work allows the viewer to determine for himself what was the most truthful and corresponds to the structure of the world – fantastic or real.

It is hard to determine the exact style, some single concrete definition. Everyone will always see something different. By their compositional structure his canvases look like revived color dreams. It is difficult to specify which technique the artist gives more preference, it seems, that it depends on the mood and availability of this or that material at hand capable to visualize the images born in mind.

Zurab Tsereteli creates his own artistic reality. He fills the entire space of the canvas and composes it completely. His compositions are always distinguished by a certain sophisticated complexity which at the same time is very organic.  Looking at the works of  Zurab Tsereteli you understand that his main theme is life itself in its everyday sketches and monumental canvases of eternity,  in its intimacy and grand scale.              





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