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Alexander Kosenkov. Sun, sea, icebreaker.
Erarta Museum presents paintings by Alexander Kosenkov, saturated with the Mediterranean sun and the energy of life.
Works of recent years, some of which are exhibited in St. Petersburg for the first time.
A paradoxical combination of humor and imagery.
Lightness combined with mathematical precision of color solutions.
By his picturesque temperament, Alexander Kosenkov (1959–2021) is an artist unusual for St. Petersburg. In his works, humor and imagery are paradoxically combined, the author's paintings are distinguished by decorativeness, vital energy, an increased degree of color - as if they were written under the Mediterranean sun. Some of them are really created under the impression of Italy, Greece, Spain, France, Montenegro, while others feel the breath of the gray Petersburg winter. But the main thing here is not external circumstances - it's all about the peculiarities of the "internal lighting". For Alexander Kosenkov, creativity is that Hemingway's "holiday that is always with you." Both in everyday motives and in fetishes of world culture and tourism industry - whatever theme the artist undertakes, interpreting it, he found that “life-giving nonsense”, the play of meanings and rhythms, that dramaturgy of color that distinguishes his work from postcard interior paintings.
The individual, unmistakable style of Alexander Kosenkov took shape by the end of the 1990s. Despite the apparent lightness that was created by daily work in the studio, the artist's works are compositionally structured, holding on to the visible and invisible lines of space. The active tone in them does not break into a scream, and the color balance is solved with mathematical precision.