Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art presents an exhibition by Sergey Kozhara in which the battle of the sexes prompts the artist’s psychoanalytical confession
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Blue and red, reason and passion, the feminine and the masculine
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A beguiling parable of the rational and the irrational contending in each of us
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Artworks straddling traditional, contemporary, and conceptual art
The exhibition’s centrepiece is a portrait of Sigmund Freud executed in ballpoint pens on paper – the same medium that propelled the artist in the limelight as one of the winners of the 2025 Erarta Prize with his flagship triptych The Battle of the Amazons and the Centaurs. The subject of battle of the sexes rings loudly throughout the show, while Freud’s portrait assumes the quality of its creator’s psychoanalytic confession.
Colour symbolism is paramount in Sergey Kozhara’s paintings and graphic works. In the context of war waged by centaurs against the amazons, the contrasting blues and reds indicate the cold-headed rationality of the female principle as opposed to untamed beastliness of the adversary. Within the artist’s lore, the female warrior strives to harness the will of man who is biologically programmed and blinded by passion. This oversimplified model is indeed rather facetious.
As a rational being, the woman aspires for order, whereas the centaur either runs riot or, much like the winged Pegasus horse, spends his time in poetic frenzy. In a curious twist of logic, the centaur’s primary artistic tool is the wooden club. This is not meant to signal that the artist views women as less creative. The opposition of the rational and the irrational has been occupying philosophers since Plato’s time, and, according to Kozhara, every human being is subject to this inner conflict. A relative balance of these two elements is essential for a harmonious existence.
Standing out among other exhibits is a digital painting that reimagines the iconic photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt published in Life magazine of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square. Working on an advertisement for a tattoo parlour, Sergey Kozhara made an attempt to revisit their story and create an image styled as a magazine illustration. Over time, the artwork gained a life of its own, spurring a standalone creative project. For the Russian viewers, it inevitably triggers another, this time involuntary, association: the bitter ending of Mikhail Kalatozov’s film The Cranes Are Flying, with the main character desperately looking for her sweetheart among the crowds of soldiers returning from war.
Born in Leningrad in 1974, Sergey Kozhara works across traditional, contemporary, and conceptual art, creating drawings, paintings, objects, and digital art pieces.
Upon graduating from the Herzen State Pedagogical University with a degree in visual arts education, in the early 2000s Kozhara embarked on an advertising career. As one of the co-founders and owners of Special’One advertising agency, he has been its Creative Director for the past 15 years.
Sergey Kozhara took part in various exhibitions staged by the St. Petersburg Artists’ Union, Nebo Gallery, and Vnutri Gallery and was among the winners of the 2025 Erarta Prize. The artist currently lives and works in St. Petersburg.
