OPENING OF THE PERSONAL EXHIBITION OF V. N. SELIVANOV

"The artist does not afraid of perfection, you'll never reach it!" - Vasily Selivanov likes to repeat the words of Salvador Dali.

Vasily Selivanov was born in 1969 in Moscow. At the beginning of his creative career he went through a passion for constructivism, abstraction and post-modernism. But for 20 years now he has been honing his skills in so-called classical art. He searches for that very perfection of harmony of forms, lines, silhouettes, textures, plastics and adds from himself the vision of the modern man, looking for new allegories and symbols. The artist is experimenting with the game of glass and bronze, naked model in graphics, and writes discreet grisaille oil.

The world of orthodoxy - this is what surrounds the modern man in Russia ... With its morals, trials, temptations, aesthetics, doubts and the need to make a difficult choice every day, every moment of its existence.

His works are not canonical from the point of view of Orthodoxy, but from the point of view of contemporary critics and artists, too orthodox, such as the Pregnant Virgin Mary ("Blessed Womb"), or the Second Tower of Babel, written on the technology of the 16th century, on a tree, levkas, glazed on imprimatur. Or the sculptural composition "War" - the work was conceived as early as in his student years, but a new impulse to it was given during his vacation in Italy. On the seashore watching as bombers take off from a military base and sow death, destruction and grief to people on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea in Libya. The war has no face - it is covered by the masks of patriotism and the struggle for freedom. The sculpture in front is exquisite and sophisticated, sitting holding the mask of Pallada Athena, but behind it is a monster! A half-rotten body, strained muscles and veins. She sits on a globe tangled in barbed wire with nuclear mushrooms growing on her. At her feet lie masks already used by her: the Narman peoples in Valkyrie, the French Revolution of Marseillaise and the Motherland. Every nation, every state has such masks. But under the hood of war blackens the emptiness, which gives a thought - what next mask she wears.

Such allegories Selivanov often uses in his works. On the fifth of October the monument to L.N. Tolstoy was opened, filled with symbols revealing the image of Tolstoy as an outstanding writer, philosopher and amazing man ... Tolstoy is sitting surrounded by two angels leading a mute dialogue. Angels of war and peace, or guardian angel and demon tempter. As Tolstoy's creative researcher Basinsky noted, "This is the best monument to Tolstoy that exists now".

The artist learns from Russian icons, old masters and living nature. Freedom in creativity, said Vasily Selivanov, however paradoxical it sounds, is rather a restriction, the ability to leave a goal, and noting the extra, momentary, to move forward to perfection! The artist has worked on creative missions in Germany, France, Australia and Oceania.