pop/off/art gallery in partnership with Anna Nova Gallery presents a solo exhibition of the key Russian emerging artist Vlad Kulkov "Alucinao". The name may be translated from Portuguese as "hallucination".
However, it reveals another important meaning: it can be heard by the viewer as "Alley see now" ("The Alley that we see now"). The exposition is built on the basis of this phrase. The image of the alley excludes the landscape connotation and denotes rather a mental structure. The alley of meanings, built by the artist in the space of the gallery, will acquire materiality in large-scale painting on canvas and paper. The author will again turn to the topic of philosophical wanderings and the search for answers to the questions of the Universe.
Most of the works that can be attributed to abstract expressionism were created specifically for the exhibition. Abstraction becomes a study in which dreamlike and psychedelic images are revealed and the philosophical ideas explored by the artist. The paintings for the project "Alucinao" are exceptional experiments with luminescent paints, new fluid color combinations, sensual dynamics of images. The search for something new here does not enter into a dispute with Kulkov's recognizable artistic language, but rather qualitatively transforms it: the author continues to work technically with irrational biomorphic forms and subtly feels color, while at the same time increases the amplitude and scope of his work.
Large-scale works on canvas will stimulate reflection, will push the viewer with the perception of painting, devoid of rational comprehension, here and now. Being an exquisite colorist Kulkov will turn to color as a tool capable of recreating images on the verge of hallucination and reality.
Vlad Kulkov was born in Liepaja (Latvia) in 1986. Graduated from the St. Petersburg State Academy of Art and Industry named after A. L. Stieglitz, in 2010 he entered the graduate school of the State Russian Museum. Since 2006, he has repeatedly traveled to Central and South America. Participant of significant group exhibitions in Russia. In 2013, he was included in the list of 115 promising contemporary artists from more than 40 countries, according to a study by the London publishing house Phaidon Press. In 2016, he entered the TOP-10 of the most prominent and promising Russian artists according to The Art Newspaper Russia rating. Kulkov's works are in the collections of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the State Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, the collection of the Sphere Foundation for the Support of Contemporary Art, and other collections in Russia and abroad. Lives and works in St. Petersburg.
Open Studios
Free of Charge 
Starts at 10:00 