Following the rules of photo-realists, Ivan’s paintings are emotionless and deprived of the presence of the artist’s personality, apart from the signs of extreme meticulousness and stubbornness evident in his artistic manner. Contrary to the methods of the classical figures of this genre, Lukinykh does not use a video-projector but instead constructs his compositions based on the film-camera snapshots. While being under an impression made by the crisp- definitiveness of a hypo-realistic image, it takes a viewer some time to catch on the fact that Lukinykh does not only double the actuality but also creates a dreamy universe.

The window of the artist’s studio opens to the typical surroundings of Perm outskirts: garages, gully, forest, and industrial pipes. Every day he makes sketches of the same dull scenery in which the only things that change are the seasons and the positions of cars. The significance of such unyielding fixation lies in the artist’s endeavour to understand the pure meaning of objects around him and to attempt to grasp their true essence. Lukinykh seems to see it in everything: in a jewellery store sign, in mirror-like walls of a shopping mall, even in a dump. Dingy walls, ugly little girls and shiny cars, similar to the traces of pencil and brushstrokes, are a mere cover for the miracle of being and ecstasy of existence. Thus, the unsightly subjects of Lukinykh’s paintings are only a guise hiding the blinding revelations of life.