Vasilij Kostiuchenko
Talent for Export.
Oil. Canvas. 160×40/8. 2018-2019.
The idea of filling the canvases with big local color spots may evoke certain associations with Fauvist painting, yet, I presume, the motivation here is different. On the one hand, the artist borrows certain European experience, and on the other, he makes use of the potentials that are never provided by the academic painting experience. In his pictures, a painter‘s drive for expressiveness is often held back by the use of a dominating local color (usually it’s red) which can vary in hues infinitely, being smoothly “transferred” from one canvas to another. The expansion of the red color is a peculiar characteristic of many of Kostiuchenko’s works making the viewer perceive them as a series in which the painter narrates the “story in the red color” of varying tones. One critic once said: “Confusion is the strong point of a Slav painter…” Confusion, absence of rational assurance and the desire to cognize the surrounding world emotionally are the characteristic features of Vassily Kostiuchenko’s works. He favors incompleteness of expression. And once the artist escapes from the “rationale” of the canvas, he tends to place big, colorful spots on it. Then the subject line becomes virtually invisible and a kind of diffusion takes place, with Her Majesty the Art being fully involved.
