VLADIMIR DUKHOVLINOV
Born in 1950 in Daugavpils (Latvia). Went to an art school in Feodosiya. In 1971 graduated from The Serov Art College, Restoration. From 1971 to 1976 he was a student at The Mukhina Industrial Art Academy at the department of Industrial Art. Worked as a designer in the development laboratory at the Izhora Plant in Leningrad.
Since 1980 has been participating in informal exhibitions held at The Variety Theatre Institute.
Dukhovlinov's compositions of 1980s - mid 90s are made up of visual signs distantly resembling canvasses of surrealists. During that period he employed the style of figurative abstraction favoring various mind games. This peculiarity often gave rise to comparing him to Paul Klee. Around the mid 1990s the painter turns to sheer abstraction in the manner of minimalism and demonstrates the ability to produce new nuances of associative imagery by scarcely noticeable texture and fading light.
Among the latest works by Vladimir Dukhovlinov is a series of canvasses "Negation of Gravity" consisting of 11 equal square canvasses bearing one name. Here, the artist appears as the spiritual heir apparent of Kasimir Malevich. His canvasses hold out complete estrangement from mundane values and mark the road to the unbeknown domains. His pursuits contain an enigma which everyone is free to solve on his own. The compositions of this series can be perceived as the hovering in an imagined zero-gravity space ungoverned by the notions of the top and bottom where the color fades melting in the flickering of soft light.
A glimpse of meaning can be elicited from the names of his pictures: "The Opening out of the Sahara Desert", "Asphalt", "The Railway Station", "A White Finger", "Bitumen", "A Red Triangular", "A Trail", "Negation of Gravity"… He is concerned with the 'traces of yesterday's events'. Sifted through the consciousness, they make the signs of the mythological reality, harmonious yet senseless.
O. Shikhareva
Personal exhibitions:
1994 - The Central Exhibition hall, St Petersburg
1995 - SAVVA Gallery, New York
1996 - in the framework of "Masters of Painting. St Petersburg, the end of the 20th century", the Theatre Museum, St Petersburg
1997 - Werdermann art, Hamburg
1999 - the State Center of Modern Art and the Association "А-Я" (these two characters stand for the first and the last letters in the Russian alphabet), "Fragments", St Petersburg.
Group Exhibitions:
1996 - The International Art Fair "Art-Manиge-96", The Central Exhibition Hall, Moscow
2000 - "Modern Art of St Petersburg", The Center of Arts and Culture", Gent, Belgium
- MiArt-2000 (The International Art Fair), Milan, Italy
His works are displayed at The Russian Museum, St Petersburg; The Manиge Central Exhibition Hall, St Petersburg; Museum of Modern Russian Art, Norton Dodge, Alexandria, the USA; The University of Sidney, Australia; private collections in Russia, England, France, Germany, Switzerland, the USA, Australia, Sweden.