Sergei Nazarov
Memorie
Curator: Afrodite Oikonomidou
05.06.2013>30.08.2013
TUESDAY-SUNDAY: 10.00 TO 18.00
Palazzo Zenobio
Collegio Armeno
Fondamenta del Soccorso
Dorsoduro 2596
30123 Venice Italy
041 5234348
www.officinadellezattere.it
Painter and Saint Petersburg native Sergei Nazarov dedicates this exhibit to Memories. He traces a personal, visual itinerary that passes through his childhood memories, his homeland, the lands he discovered during his many travels, close relationships, beloved family members and his knowledge of Art History. A sequence of places, landscapes and symbols experienced by the artist.
The exhibit is a journey into the memories residing in Nazarov’s soul. Venice, with its time-honoured connection with Russian art and artists, is one of Nazarov’s favourite cities – making it the ideal setting for his exhibit. The many different techniques used by the artist will present the public with beams of creativity that range from tempera on cardboard to oil on canvas, the variable luminosity of charcoal drawings and etchings, the patina that becomes almost like a silvery fog and a stroke – at times soft and willowy and at times hard and distinct with a marked graphic line. His still lifes are not lacking in humour and theatricality. In fact, they are extravagant visions of a strange conglomerate of elements from the Art History repertoire.
The exhibit features works demonstrating some of the traditions marking Sergei Nazarov’s artistic pursuit such as the Saint Petersburg school, Armenian and European Art. Saint Petersburg represents his contemplative mood, his investigation of fragility and musical perfection, of a culture characterized by its cautious equilibrium. Armenia, a symbol of austerity, is the archaic incarnation of dry sorrow expressed by low bass notes and stoic heroism. Europe, in the background, is the object of worship and the personification of wealth and culture, the classic principles such as harmony between sentiment and reason.
Nazarov cultivates the aesthetics of everyday life and realism while encouraging dreams at the same time, frequently revealing his romanticism. The artist deliberately dismisses the present, with its “doubts” and “questions” regarding the true position and potential of art today: for Nazarov, art is indestructible, like nature itself, while his idiom becomes transparent under the pressure of light and silence.
We can hear the silence of Sergei Nazarov’s paintings, the barely audible rustling of his lines, his melancholy and his deafening bliss over being an exhibited artist in the halls of Palazzo Zenobio, only a few steps from the 2013 Venice Biennale.
