I am bringing you an amazing Russian graphic artist. His name is Alexey Kurbatov and he produces BEAUTIFUL artworks which look like collages...
How would you describe yourself and your art?
There is a divergence familiar to everyone: who I am and who I want to seem. For instance, I wanted to paint disturbed lyrics, a second before a catastrophe, insecurity or the loneliness of a little man the way it would not look like a soap opera or a melodrama. Sometimes I want to make thriller - to convey horror so that it would become inexplicably terrifying. And sometimes to make all these topics together and with a shade of absurd. Probably it turns out to be something else. But at last it's unimportant if it caught someone's attention for more than 5 seconds.
Once, two women were listening to one of 46 Haydn's symphonies. Both were excited after listening and close to tears: one was scared by sinister untrodden wood, the other worried about furry rabbit running about meadow. I'm sure that Haydn himself had imagined these options...
Are you represented by a gallery and do you currently have a show?
I held an exhibition in July this year. Now I'm preparing the next one. But in my point of view it has relative benefits. Back to musical analogies: the majority of people is satisfied with recordings but only 10% attend concerts. You can see all my works on the Internet without leaving your armchair. You can buy magazines in any kiosk and not visit any gallery. In my opinion, that's great. Exhibitions are important for those who are really unique in their creation, whose works are worth your three hours trip to the megalopolis. But painters-illustrators can be mostly noticed in magazines.
Have you ever collaborated with other organisations?
I am glad to work with concrete people. I understand people better than organizations. So that I do not belong to anything like that somehow. I work with writers, musicians, priests, journalists, magazines, banks, design-studios, press agencies and with those who just want to make a birthday present to their beloved...
If you were not an artist, what would you be doing?
Maybe I would have chosen something sounder, indispensable for people and different for my family and friends. Something reliable and irrefutable...
Do you consider that Art is Alive?
Of course. And first of all because of an effect, that it produces, it can't be taken to screws. How can books written hundred years ago in Russia make huge impressions on Japanese living today? This happens. Can one predict art? No. All of these are signs of alive processes.
Who would you be interested to work with?
I'd like to work with some foreign magazines a lot. Overall, I'm interested in seeing how people work abroad. Will I be understood in other countries and will my works be considered interesting? This is a task for the next year. Yet I'm gaining experience, trying to paint more. It takes it's normal course. I'm not in a hurry.
To finish with, what would you wish to this blog?
First of all I wish you not to be mixed up in the visual streams that exist on the Internet. Everyday thousands of images appear on the net. There are more and more authors, all write, sing or paint. It's great but in such a stream one may miss unique things. I wish you to have a sincere interest in the creations of people all around the world. We should be attentive to everyone if possible.
More info on: www.kurbatov.net
