Boris Markovnikov

Was bornin- 1958 (Moscow). Graduated from MoscowArtCollege «In Memory of 1905». Since 1983 Member of the Union of Artists of the USSR. 1990 – 1995 – member and founder of the group «Polygon». 1986 – 1st Premium, 17th Youth Exhibition of the Union of Artists, Moscow, USSR. 1988 – 1st Premium, Biennale of Modern Painting, Sophia. 2002 – Silver Medal of RussianAcademy of Art. Lives in Moscow. One-man exhibitions: «Unsearchable are Your ways, Lord!», pop/off/art Gallery, Moscow, Russia, «Shagreen leather. Paper variations», «New World of Art» Gallery, Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Group exhibitions: “Art-Moscow”, «Adventure of Black Square», StateRussianMuseum, Saint-Petersburg.

Lamentation

Boris Markovnikov’s experiments in painting are based on the international tradition of Minimalism and Optical Art, but combines it with national roots — with religious-philosophical content — principally moving thereby contrary to all current trends. He works with the monochrome color background of each canvas for a long time, successively covering its surface with a mesh of dashes-scratches, sometimes of the opposite color in the spectrum, made by the reverse end of the brush. In some pictures this mesh of dashes acquires figurative features — out of the chaotically, it would seem, made lines appears an image-face, as a rule, allegorically specific: a Warrior, a Sinner, a Child or the Creator of Nature. In such a way Markovnikov outlines his personal know-how turning, in the age of reproduction technologies which level individuality, to archaic (as if from the times of the flaming Gothic or Mannerism) methods of narration and representation — by posing the Eternal Questions and creating images of Genuine Mastery.

Sergey Popov