Irina Starzhenetskaya and Anatoly Komelin "Signs of Being"

In the halls of the Russian Academy of Arts (Prechistenka 21), an exhibition of works by Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, State Prize Laureate Irina Starzhenetskaya and honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts Anatoly Komelin “Signs of Being” will be held.

The audience will have a new meeting with the works of the famous artistic duet. The name of the exhibition itself contains not only its concept, but also a kind of characteristic of the nature of the work of famous Russian authors. Researchers note the ability of masters to renounce everything earthly and see the world as if from above, capturing the harmony of all that exists, which in everyday life of an ordinary person breaks up into many minor episodes. The unsolved, mystery, the combination of a deeply national vision of the world with a common humanity of common problems, closeness to the precepts of ancient masters - with responsiveness to the love and pain of modernity - all this can be equally attributed to the paintings of I. Starzhenetskaya and the sculpture of A. Komelin. "Express at least a small part of what is larger than you." In this they see the purpose of art, which is born in the infinite space between the Creator and the Creation, in which the artist and his work live. The exposition of the exhibition, presenting the works of recent years, places the main semantic accents of their many years of creativity.

Irina Starzhenetskaya belongs to a galaxy of artists from the late 1960s - 1970s, who brought a new attitude to the world, a new style. In 1968, she graduated from the Moscow State Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov, where she studied with such major masters as A. Gritsai, D. Zhilinsky, S. Shilnikov. For many years she designed performances in the musical theaters of the country, but she always remained faithful to painting, trying to express her feelings with her means, “to say things you cannot say,” which over the years has shaped her unique style. Amazing with its plastic freedom and the power of the picturesque elements, it was the result of not only an innate artistic gift, but also a consequence of her outstanding intellect.

“Her painting was originally metaphorical, and it should be evaluated solely by categories of poetics,” notes art critic M. Lazarev. Color has always been for Starzhenetskaya the basis of her pictorial speech. She comprehended his secrets during all periods of her work. Being musically gifted by nature, she perceives color as visible music, as interconnections and interactions of life, trying to translate auditory sensations into visual ones, using, first of all, not so much visual as expressive possibilities of color, from rainbow combinations to frankly black, depending on the design.

Paying tribute to certain genres at different times - a portrait in the 1970s and 80s, image of flowers - in the 2000s, landscape I. Starzhenetskaya does not prefer any of them, following, first of all, the desire to convey her condition, feeling - pain, suffering, love, joy… An extremely large plan, she creates compositions on the canvas, achieving true tension and drama in them, and everything that is depicted in her works - a human figure, bird, tree, river, cloud, takes on the character of a sign, an eternal element of life.

The exhibition presents works, combined by the author in extensive series, defining the geography of her travels, spiritual and artistic priorities: “Greece”, “Syria”, the Gospel cycle, “Tarusa” and others. Embodying in real colors the impressions, images created by her imagination, Starzhenetskaya creates her own unique artistic history of the world, involving the viewer in an exciting journey.

Anatoly Komelin (born 1953) is one of the most striking and distinctive modern sculptors. The sculptor’s favorite material is wood. He also works with stone, metal, and other hard materials. Avoiding detail, the master demonstrates the power and expressiveness of plastic minimalism.

Originally from the Mari Territory, Komelin since childhood has shown the ability to craft with his own hands. In 1976 he graduated from the Penza Art College named after K.A. Savitsky, having received a deep professional education. Since 1981 he lives in Moscow. For several decades A. Komelin has been working both in easel art, experimenting in works of wooden plastic and free compositional compositions, and in monumental art, creating stone reliefs, iconostases, worship crosses for Orthodox churches. The movement from subject forms to conditionally abstract, more simple and concise, allows him to express capacious, eternal meanings and plots. Wood, stone, other materials and random objects in the hands of the master turn into unique works of art. In his work, Komelin not only transforms nature, but exposes its essential properties.

In such large-format objects as “Resurrection of Lazarus” or easel “Besogon”, “Theater of military operations”, the sculptor solves the problems of space by working in a conventional manner, with a certain amount of irony and fun inventiveness. Creating church works, he is extremely strict in detail, thoroughness of execution, architectonics of spatial constructions, harmony of part and whole. The exhibition presents stone compositions on biblical subjects: “Transfiguration,” “Annunciation,“ Meeting, ““ Baptism, ”etc.

Most of the artists’ works were created in Tarusa, where they live for a long time in their house, which has become their second workshop. Since 1989, Irina Starzhenetskaya and her husband, Anatoly Komelin, participated in the creation of the interior of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Tarus, completed in 1998. Starzhenetskaya completed the pictorial part of the iconostasis, painting walls and mosaics, Komelin - woodwork and stone. They also took part in the decoration of the Small Ascension Church on B. Nikitskaya Street in Moscow. This work has become an important stage in the work of artists. It was connected, first of all, with the study of the historical experience of church painting, the knowledge of the most complex problems of Orthodox canons. The knowledge gained allowed them to expand the range of their creative searches beyond the boundaries of the visible, into the sphere of a purely spiritual being. Therefore, the works of recent years, regardless of the plot and genre, are perceived as a multidimensional symbol of some part of the universe.

The works of artists are in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and other major museums in our country and abroad, as well as in many private collections.

I. Starzhenetskaya and A. Komelin were awarded the medal of the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh, I degree, awarded gold medals of the Russian Academy of Arts.

The exhibition runs until December 16, 2018