Alexander Kosenkov. Sun, sea, icebreaker

Erarta Museum presents paintings by Alexander Kosenkov, saturated with the Mediterranean sun and the energy of life.

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, vitality, 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 "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 - no matter what topic 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.

The Erarta team discovered Alexander Kosenkov for themselves even before the opening of the museum: while collecting the all-Russian collection of contemporary Russian painting, the experts visited Novosibirsk, where they met the artist. This is how long-term cooperation began: the author's works were included in the permanent exhibition of the museum, and his personal exhibitions were organized in St. Petersburg and abroad. From the Novosibirsk Academgorodok Kosenkov moved to the city on the Neva. He regularly participated in Erarta's exhibition projects, including traveling ones - this is how viewers saw his works in many cities from Minsk to Vladivostok, from Veliky Novgorod to Almaty.

The creative path of Alexander Kosenkov was unexpectedly interrupted by a coronavirus infection. The exhibition "Sun, Sea, Icebreaker" presents mainly works of recent years, some of them are exhibited in St. Petersburg for the first time.