Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art presented an exhibition by the Starodumov brothers known as bratya_gafs: a series of 21 photorealistic ‘portraits’ of collectors’ edition supercars
The Starodumov brothers started their joint creative journey from drawing cars: for 10 years, as they systematically honed their skills, pencil drawing was their medium of choice. They wished to achieve the highest possible level of precision and verisimilitude in capturing every reflection on the bodywork, the lustre of chrome and car paint, the minutest details of the grill. Having drawn more than 100 automobile ‘portraits,’ in 2015 they took up oil painting: the brothers were lured by the brightness and vividness of paints, the magic of colours and hues, which was exactly what they needed for rendering their extremely lifelike hyper- and supercars.
Anton and Sergey Starodumov achieved fame in the car art world under the bratya_gafs moniker, a nickname attached to them since their childhood. As of today, the artists have created more than 100 oil on canvas pictures of cars, mostly of suprecars belonging to various celebrities (among them musicians Timati, Vitya AK-47, and Bogdan Titomir, and the Hollywood actor Jamie Foxx) and influential businessmen, including those on the Forbes list.
The exhibition at Erarta Museum showcases the ‘portraits’ of collectors’ edition supercars. Each of these vehicles is a part of a limited production run and costs over a million Euro, like Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat, Porsche 918 Spyder, Pagani Huayra BC, Ford GT, Lamborghini Aventador SVJ, and others.
‘We believe that expensive luxury cars have always been popular, appealing to just about anyone. Each of us has at least once in the lifetime dreamed, or maybe is still dreaming, of a beautiful sportscar,’ comment the artists. ‘For us a suprecar is more than just a car These exclusive editions, alongside celebrated paintings and sculptures, are highly valued, both in terms of their price and as an important contribution to global culture.’
Anton and Sergey Starodumov were born in 1987 in Zagorsk (now Sergiyev Posad). In 2002 they graduated from an art college. They also hold diplomas from the Moscow State University of Instrument Engineering and Computer Science. Having spent a decade drawing cars, in 2015 they turned to the medium of oil on canvas. The artists’ paintings can be found in private collections in Russia and abroad (USA, Germany, UK, France, China, Japan, UAE, etc.).
