Alexander Dosuzhev:
Geometry of Feelings

Alexander Dosuzhev belonged to a galaxy of masters of the modern history of art, which began in the 70s of the twentieth century. He is one of the outstanding artists of that wave, who were usually called "nonconformists". This was the name given to artists who defended their own positions, their vision of the world, opposing their art to the generally accepted opinion.

Alexander DOSUZHEV
(1944 - 2014)

• Born in the village of Pukhovichi, Minsk region.
• In 1970 he graduated from the art and graphic department of the Vitebsk Pedagogical Institute. Participant of city, regional and republican exhibitions since 1965.
• Member of the creative association "Kvadrat" since 1987.
• Participant of exhibitions in Russia, Poland, Spain, Latvia as part of the "Kvadrat" trade association.
• Member of the Belarusian Union of Artists since 1989.
• Chairman of the Vitebsk Regional Union of Artists since 1997.
• The author of the creative concept PLIP – Surface, Line and Spot.
• Painting, graphics, monumental art, installation, performance.
• The author’s works are in the collections of the Vitebsk Art Museum, the Museum of the Vitebsk Center for Contemporary Art, in national galleries and private collections in the USA, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Israel, Latvia, Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.

"I do not copy nature, but strive to match it in order to create something beautiful. A true artist always shows the divinely beautiful and devilishly complex world in a new way"
Alexander Dosuzhev.

After graduating from the art and graphic department of the pedagogical institute, Alexander Dosuzhev decided to stay and work in Vitebsk. He did not simply become a "Vitebsk artist", he was imbued with the best ideas and traditions of the Vitebsk art school, which became the meaning and formed the concept of his entire work. Alexander called this concept, born 30 years ago, PLIP - by the first letters of the concepts: Surface, Line and Spot. These three categories express the integrative existence of heterogeneous principles. The surface is an analogue of the space of Infinity, the equanimity of the endless sea of u200bu200bBeing, the perfection and fullness of Infinity. The line represents radical tendencies to rupture this space, through which a new revelation must be manifested, something that has never been and is fundamentally impossible for the very order of existence. The surface is an expression of the space of absolute being, the Line shows a tendency to rupture its fabric. The spot is the principle of the spontaneous generation of life and clots of awareness, which can have the properties of the Cosmic Egg. The interaction of these three categories reveals a complex cosmological system, which Alexander Dosuzhev formulated and expressed in his work. And in each of the artist’s paintings, special principles of this mystery of interaction are revealed.

Alexander Dosuzhev substantiated the author’s idea of PLIP as follows: "The Eternal Surface is our land. The lines of rivers, roads and our destinies. The spots of fields, forests and our faces constantly change their color." The basis of PLIP compositions is the creation of artistic space by combining a colored plane, irregular shapes, smooth and broken lines. Subsequently, the artist noticeably departs from the relative simplicity of the initial period,

to combine the seemingly incompatible: sensuality and conceptuality. The second wave of PLIPs are compositions that are simplified on the one hand, and filled with a certain expressive content on the other; works in which the artist, in his words, “combined the rigidity of Malevich’s lines and the romanticism of Chagall.” With the help of these “tools,” the artist paints the red sea, the white world, and the yellow submarine. As if he were encrypting feelings in parallel or broken lines and complex figures. But the main thing is always color – it takes the form of an artistic PLIP.

It is no coincidence that the works of this period have gained the greatest popularity, receiving high praise from art critics and lovers of avant-garde art. The artist managed to create works that, on the one hand, have their own unique style - they can be easily distinguished by style, color, expression, on the other hand, they reflect the style and spirit of the Vitebsk school as well as possible. And it is from the works, mostly related to this fruitful period, that this exhibition is assembled.

Later, however, the artist will return to the origins of his concept, but with a greater, almost exaggerated, bias towards the clarity of large-scale canvases and the expressiveness of the torn geometry of the figures depicted on them. Simplifying the composition as much as possible and using acrylic paints instead of oil paints, the artist still remains true to his credo and creative style. The concept of PLIP becomes a manifestation of the harmonization that distinguished the personality of Alexander Dosuzhev, defining a very special place for the artist’s work in the cultural context of modernity.