FUTURO Gallery presents a solo exhibition by artist Pavel Grishin C’est Trop — a series of large‑format painted canvases and ceramic sculptures dedicated to the Decembrist uprising of 1825.

The work on the C’est Trop project was initiated by Alexandre Dumas’s book “The Fencing Master”. In the novel, the events of the Decembrist uprising are described from the perspective of a Frenchman, a fencing master who personally knew the Decembrists. Dumas’s book clearly conveys the sense of ideological division and catastrophe that marked a turning point and influenced the fates of many people and the entire subsequent history of Russian thought.

Pavel Grishin uses the December events of two hundred years ago as a kind of entry point into the local sociocultural context, and the figure of the romantically inclined, rebellious nobleman as the lyrical hero of the series. The visual component of the series is more reminiscent of an extended, repeatedly recurring dream, a tall tale full of hidden metaphors and allegories, in which specific events and the settings of the characters’ actions may take on an unexpected form or even radically change their original nature and chronology.

About the artist
Pavel Grishin (b. 1978, Moscow) is a multidisciplinary artist. He graduated from the Moscow State Art and Industrial Academy named after. Stroganov, specializing in monumental and decorative painting. From 2012 to 2013, he studied at the Institute of Problems of Contemporary Art. He participated in the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Young Art, the Blazar, Cosmoscow, Oberton, and Kontur fairs, as well as numerous museum and gallery exhibitions. His works are held in private and museum collections.

Working mainly with traditional visual media, in his practice Pavel Grishin explores the themes of power, biopolitics, and technology. The starting point for his work is often photo references that he accidentally comes across online. By assembling fragments of digital images into a single composition, breaking them down and deforming them using an artistic medium, Pavel ends up with a non‑existent event that is not governed by cause‑and‑effect relationships. By thus breaking the “familiar” narrative, he reveals hidden factors that directly influence decision‑making processes, worldview, and perception.