Nikita Kulnev. Limbo Automatic translate

Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art presents an exhibition of artist Nikita Kulnev, whose painting reinterprets classical traditions in art

• Author’s interpretation of traditional and biblical stories
• New forms and images created by an artist inspired by the art of the early Renaissance, Russian icon painting, expressionism and avant-garde
• The author’s non-trivial approach to the disclosure of plots, allowing for a more accurate translation of the meanings inherent in the works

This is the first museum exhibition of the young St. Petersburg artist, Erarta Prize 2023 participant Nikita Kulnev.

Limbo is a term in medieval theology denoting the place where souls who do not go to heaven are located, which is not hell or purgatory. This is a place where the souls of quite good people, but non-Christians, end up. The artist uses the word “limb” as a metaphor - perhaps he is hinting that our modern world is limbo?

Nikita Kulnev is a hereditary artist, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts named after Ilya Repin, a perfectionist inspired by the art of the early Renaissance, Russian icon painting, expressionism, and the avant-garde. He works a lot with Christian themes, does painting, graphics, and makes mosaics for churches. The artist has his own recognizable plastic style, his own sense of man in the world, his own tasks in his work. He writes about himself: “The most important things in art for me are the internal content, semantic load and sharp, non-trivial composition. I am interested in modern interpretation of classical traditions in art, references, rethinking of plots and symbols, creating new forms and images, experiments with a combination of artistic techniques and materials.”

The exhibition features fourteen works executed in a monumental style. These include illustrations of biblical scenes, portraits of young people, and a combination of eternal themes with modernity. In some paintings, the image of a thin, naked, short-haired, round-headed young man of a Slavic rather than biblical type is repeatedly present. The figures in Kulnev’s works are a kind of sign; they are deliberately impersonal, and their role is determined by the action. When working with a chosen theme, what is important for the artist is not the distinctive body features or portrait resemblance, but the places occupied by the figures in the composition, poses, gestures, and conventional elements. The author’s idea is that all people are initially equal, and the viewer’s attitude towards the character is formed by the actions and actions depicted in the picture. “I can’t say for sure why this image developed this way,” says the artist, “I think this is how I see the naked soul of a person, if we discard his biography, place of birth, personal history, views, etc. For me, this is all wrong important. Within the framework of the plot, I am only interested in what is happening at the moment. Partly in this image I portray my own soul, trying on the situation for myself and analyzing how I would act, what I would do.”

Kulnev’s paintings seem to remind contemporaries that all those challenges, trials, problems of choice, passions that people faced thousands of years ago can still be relevant in our time. The artist’s works are distinguished by their purity of form, precision of lines and compositions, and monumental plastic style. They are not like what you usually see at contemporary art exhibitions.