Gennady Zubkov

Gennady Zubkov was born in 1940 in Perm and graduated from the School of Visual and Graphic Arts of the Herzen Pedagogical Institute in Leningrad. The artist founded the Form+Colour experimental art research group in 1995 and the 17 April artistic association in 1998. Zubkov lived and worked in St. Petersburg and passed away in 2021.

Gennady Zubkov’s canvases reveal a rainbow-like universe based on the juxtaposition, combination, and amalgamation of colourful worlds and realms. Objects and forms pictured by the artist are infused with light and colour, each having a pure and distinct voice in the complex and incredibly harmonious orchestrated whole. More like ‘ideas’ of objects than objects per se, they appear idealised and characteristically individual at the same time. Transcending visual perception, the artist, followed by the viewer, penetrates into the enigma of painterly worldbuilding, entering the nearly sacral space wherein forests and mountains, monastery towers and sunbeams, paunchy jugs and seashells live their mysterious lives. Human features here are highlighted with celestial glow, while the trees turn their almond-shaped faces towards the sky.