Статья Брюса Хиландера для каталога персональной выставки Сергея Федотова в The Coral Springs Museum of Art.

Статья публикуется на английском языке.

Illustration: "The American Dream". Installation in the Central House of Artist (Moscow, Russia).

The exhibition will be held at the Coral Springs Museum of Art. Curator of the project, Bruce Helander wrote an essay for this catalog, a fragment of which we present to your attention:

A Creative Hurricane
Of Painterly Invention
BY BRUCE HELANDER.

(BRUCE HELANDER IS AN ARTIST WHO WRITES ON ART. HE HAS BEEN FOLLOWING FEDOTOV’S EXHIBITIONS FOR YEARS AND HAS WRITTEN ABOUT HIS WORK EXTENSIVELY, INCLUDING ESSAYS IN THE HUFFINGTON POST. HELANDER RECENTLY WAS INDUCTED INTO THE FLORIDA ARTISTS HALL OF FAME AND IS A FORMER WHITE HOUSE FELLOW OF THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS AND IS THE FORMER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF THE ART ECONOMIST).


It makes good sense that closely following an artist’s development provides a unique viewpoint of valuable clarity in which to not only increasingly appreciate the minute details and basic compositional structure of new work produced, but enables one to decode and ultimately fully comprehend the narrative inventiveness and accompanying energy behind its particular surface imagery. The end results often become more obvious when a painter has challenged himself to explore new visual territory and assume the accompanying risks of trial and error as pushed by spontaneity, which provide a necessary, positive edge to an ever-expanding palette. Therefore, as guest curator, it is a privilege and a unique opportunity to have organized this first major retrospective of the work of Russian artist Sergey Fedotov for the Coral Springs Museum of Art.

I first discovered Fedotov’s captivating and somewhat strange hybrid mix of abstract expressionism and integrated narrative components during an art fair in Naples, Florida. The multiple layers of oil-based medium of his brightly-hued canvases immediately drew my attention, and I was compelled to walk into the booth for a closer look. After a careful inspection of the works on display, I decided to dig a bit further by asking about the artist and his career, and I learned that Fedotov was a physicist before he became an artist, with a childhood passion for painting that eventually won out. For nearly twenty years, Fedotov has continued to produce wondrous, idiosyncratic works that magically splice together bits and pieces of a recognizable subject surrounded and intertwined with energetic, swirling brushstrokes that push and pull the composition, creating an illusionistic fluidity of constant movement. Fedotov’s methods of applying paint are a bit similar to the tropical storms that form off the shores of a distant continent, energized from the warm waters of the Atlantic as they drift towards the Florida coast. A developing hurricane system, like the aggressive, twirling, brushstroke gestures of the artist, begins to spin and grow, outwardly affecting air pressure and churning faster and faster as it eventually rotates tightly into the “eye” of the storm, forming an intriguing meteorological composition recognizable only from a satellite’s aerial view. Fedotov harnesses the same kind of kinetic energy, like a provocative tropical cyclone stimulated by a natural creative force, which allows his painterly surfaces to flow in all directions until they surround the center point with an ambulatory current that often highlight a key subject.


One point that a visitor can quickly decipher from this ambitious survey at the Coral Springs Museum of Art is the deliberate employment of a remarkable common denominator; a personal signature actually made of marks and gestures that the artist regularly employs. During Fedotov’s determined albeit circuitous journey during the last decade to find and secure a suitable equilibrium and aesthetic, a private, pre-arranged marriage ceremony takes place in his studio that cleverly binds an unrelated odd couple of the abstract and the identifiable. Once an observer examines this work it can be easily recognizable as a genuine Fedotov though in a different context or environment, whether at an auction preview or at a show in some distant geographic region. The remarkable consistency of this artist’s style, coupled with an impressive appetite for exploration, guarantees that the work will remain fresh and vibrant while still holding on to the basic design principles for which he is celebrated...