Milan, Veronica Smirnoff's exhibition at Riccardo Crespi Gallery

On view at Riccardo Crespi Gallery through July 20, 2018, is "Tales of Bright and Brittle," the third solo exhibition in Italy by Russian-born British artist Veronica Smirnoff. The works in the exhibition constitute an almost completely unified body of work, conceived and painted between 2017 and 2018 by the artist who delves into various insights between fantasy and history, folklore and imagination. Smirnoff draws inspiration from his experiences of places, his love of books and stories, while respecting common history, myths and epics.

Egg tempera on chalk board, one of the oldest and most meticulous techniques, is instrumental to the process in which the artist combines icon technique with miniature, Asian tradition with folk art, as well as cues and symbols from other sources, to add meaning and validity to his subjects. By taking hold of different pictorial languages through irrational juxtaposition and pure intuition, he hints at the relentless conflict between figuration and abstraction, a subtle and constantly re-imagined balance between allegory and appropriation. In the artist’s words, “The magic of daring to tell what is always happening in mental space is evidence of the imagination that allows us to move freely in the realm of fantasy, reluctant to question the lack of logic among the incomprehensible things that sooner or later find meaning and teach us something about the real world.”

Thematic cues are many and unquenchable: in “Scarlet and Seraphim,” the explicit reference to Böcklin ’s The Island of the Dead loosens into a brighter space, suggesting the possibility of still exploring painting and life-which here display a common destiny in which thoughts and images are subject to an eternal return. There is also no shortage of nods to the contemporary world, in its beauty and fragility: “Echelon” shows a group of people in a queue, perhaps migrants - but more simply human beings - on their way to unknown territories, in which each brings its own history and sensibility: what makes our journey unique, encapsulated in a collective memory, never lacking the ancient instinct of wonder, security and hope.

Veronica Smirnoff, born in Moscow in 1979, lives and works between London and Moscow. Some exhibitions: 2016 Anthropocene, Galleria Riccardo Crespi, Milan; 10. Group show 2006-2016, Galleria Riccardo Crespi, Milan 2015 Painting Now, Galleria Riccardo Crespi, Milan 2014 Forward, Eton College,Windsor, UK; A Midsummer Night’s: Dreams... and Music, St Peter’s Church, London; Would Be Worlds, ErartaGallery, London; Walls, Pushkin House, London 2013 Beyond The Shore, Galleria Riccardo Crespi, Milan;EVERYWHERE BUT NOW, 4th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece; Renewal of theSacred, House of the Nobleman, London; The Future Can’t Wait, B1, Victoria House, London 2012 Dreaming Beauties, Galleria Riccardo Crespi, Milan; The Madding Spring, Gallery Vela, London 2011 Opulent Vision, Ford Project Gallery, New York 2010 BRIC Theme Auction, Saatchi Gallery, London; John Moores Painting Prize 2010, Walker Art Gallery, National Museums, Liverpool; Zhar, Galerie Stanislas Bourgain, Paris 2009 Women to Watch: The Figure Re-Figured, Friends of National Museum of Women in the Arts, London 2008 Invasion: Evasion, Baibakov art projects, Moscow; Morozka, Galleria Riccardo Crespi, Milan 2006 TGU, Zoo Art Fair, London; Lenin Lovers, Curator Space Gallery, London 2005 Baroquerocks, Espace Brochage Express Gallery, Paris.

For all information you can visit www.riccardocrespi.com or email info@riccardocrespi.com.

Pictured: Dancers In the Storm, 2018, egg tempera on wood.

Milan, Veronica Smirnoff's exhibition at Riccardo Crespi Gallery

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