Interview
Yuri Pervushin
Yuri was born in Nalchik, Russia, and is currently a member of the Russian Union of Artists.
He graduated from the Sverdlovsk Art College, and also studied at the Graphic Arts faculty of The St. Petersburg Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture named after Ilya Repin, studio of professor A.A. Pakhomov.
In 1995, Yuri interned at the École Nationale Supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris, a painting studio of professor B. Piffaretti, and engraving studio of professor J.P. Tanguy.
Yuri has participated in more than 100 personal and group exhibitions in Russia and abroad.
His artworks can be found in museum collections, and also in private collections in Australia, Belgium, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Russia, the USA, France, and Finland.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“My first professional education was at an art college in Sverdlovsk. Then I entered the Saint Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts, and graduated from the Faculty of Graphics. The education of an artist at the Academy of Arts was quite traditional, and soon this was not enough for me. So we created an art group with several classmates and began to engage in creative searches actively. In 1993, we had our first exhibition abroad, in Belgium. In my senior year, I became a laureate of a competition in Paris dedicated to the interpretation of Poussin paintings, and participated in an exhibition in France. From these small but important victories, the beginning of my creative path was formed.”
“People who look at my paintings see something of their own, different from my thoughts about the piece. It’s interesting that each time it’s something different. Some people even see the outlines of human figures. This is the hidden message of my art — to establish a dialogue with the viewer through the play of imagination.”
What inspires you?
“I find inspiration in two things: my own work and the world around me. First of all, I am inspired by the process itself. The philosophy of my work lies in the fact that I observe material life — the life of things, objects of human life. I also observe the states of nature. I’m a northern person, so I am greatly inspired by northern nature. That’s why I often use cold colors in my paintings. I spy on the outward things and try to show them from my point of view. Despite my own interpretation, the ‘heroes’ of my paintings always become real things that exist in life.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“One of the features of my art is abstraction. In any real thing, there is a certain generalization and abstraction. I notice it in the artworks of great artists. One of the teachers at the Academy once told us that Rembrandt’s famous hands of old men are essentially abstract forms. He painted these hands, seeing in them a generalization, and only then gave them a concrete form. In my work, I also try to combine abstraction and reality. Existing leaves, jars, moths, and other things that attract me are initially abstract in my paintings, but I always find some objectivity in them that cannot be read directly.
In purely abstract works, I give more freedom to color. They turn out to be brighter than figurative art.”
How would you describe your work?
“If we talk about the technical part of the work, I use classic materials: canvas, oil, acrylic. I'm primarily interested in acrylic because of the ability to add many layers of paint to the canvas. In this way, I achieve a specific airiness and texture. Since I am a graphic artist by education — the influence of graphics can be seen in my landscapes and still life — acrylic seems to be the closest to me. It is water-based and similar to graphic materials.”
Which artists influence you most?
“This list is endless. To speak about old masters, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Beato Angelico and Jan Vermeer had the greatest influence on me. Of contemporary artists, Vasily Kandinsky is close to me in terms of mood and forms. He has natural, soft lines, which I also strive for in my work. Expressionists Anselm Kiefer, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock also inspire me with their concept.”
What is your creative process like?
“I work in cycles. I have about 30 series dedicated to certain subjects. I return to some series after a few years and interpret them in my work in a new way. This is what happened with the depiction of leaves. In the 1990s, I painted leaves with an emphasis on the generalized state of nature. In 2021, I returned to this topic, but now I am exploring a separate leaf as a macrocosm with its own laws, concentrating only on it.
I also often take photographs of objects then depict them on canvas, interpreting them in my own way and adding my own vision. As a result, if you compare the photograph and the final painting, you get two completely different things.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“I don’t think that I reflect some important social messages in my work. There are artists who concentrate attention in their artworks on sociopolitical contexts. I do not consider myself to belong to them. I view myself as a ‘chamber', or intimate artist. My philosophy is to immerse myself in an atmosphere of contemplation and silence; to peek at the real world and show it through art.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“The most significant exhibitions for me were held at the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts. My works were exhibited there in 1998, 2003, and 2016. One of my last large-scale exhibitions was a solo exhibition, The Silhouettes of Eternity at the Rakov Gallery in Yekaterinburg. You can see it here.”
Website: www.yuri-pervushin.com
Instagram: @yurypervushin
