Maxim Kayotkin

Born in 1972 in the restricted-access town of Snezhinsk (Chelyabinsk-70), Maxim graduated from the Ivan Shadr Sverdlovsk Art College and went on to complete his postraguate studies at the Painting Department of the Ilya Glazunov Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Kayotkin devoted 11 years of his life to teaching: in the past, he headed the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Perm, and currently holds an academic rank of associate professor. He lives and works in Perm.

Maxim Kayotkin’s art perfectly encapsulates the experience of a social realm common to all humanity. The principal ‘characters’ of his austere industrial landscapes are the obsolete products of human engineering genius: railroad cars that will never again accommodate a bustling crowd of passengers, open cast mines no longer criss-crossed by giant rumbling lorries, and loading cranes pointing their forever frozen booms at the sky.