Andrei Kolkoutine

Andrei Kolkoutine (Smolyaninovo, Primorsky Krai, born 1957) is a Russian painter who lives and works in the North Caucasus. He graduated from the Repin Academy of Arts in Leningrad in 1982 and is regarded as one of the figures of post-Soviet art. His work blends very different traditions within a single canvas, producing a recognizable language even though he does not belong to any single movement.

He works mainly in oil on canvas, though he has also produced graphic works, reliefs and carved wooden sculptures. By the late 1980s he had settled into a characteristic style that combines suprematist and avant-garde elements with figurative painting and the tradition of Russian icons. Oblique buildings and playing cards often frame his motifs. To recreate the subdued tones of old icons, he applies one or more layers of neutral paint to the canvas before painting, which leaves the colours light and sometimes almost transparent.

His motifs are unusual: ordinary people from the Russian provinces and biblical scenes, treated with the same everyday gaze. Baptised in his early thirties near the end of the Soviet period, when censorship had eased, he later placed the Orthodox Church at the centre of his art. He is not interested in mimesis, the faithful reproduction of reality, but in the essential aspects of existence, which he finds in the minor events of daily life.

His work is held in collections including the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the Volgograd Picture Gallery, as well as several Russian banks. His legacy lies in reinterpreting Russian art from a postmodern, post-communist standpoint and in defending an individual visual language beyond any single -ism.