PETR SHVETSOV - VIEWING ROOMS | Gallery of modern art
text 2 and portrait

The main goal of his art is "to make beauty", which is so few around. Petr Shvetsov searches for the lost harmony and turns to the past.

His art is expressive that is why he still manages to shock, touch the audience on the raw, that stands ready for anything.

БОЛОТА

Peter Shvetsov presents his research into the frontiers of painting on the example of one apparently very simple theme - a landscape with a swamp. The texture of the painting undergoes a check on its ability to convey the depth of a waterlogged quagmire in which opinions and ideas get bogged down. An initial impulse for work has been given by the popular scientific book.

N.Sukachyov "Swamps, their formation, development and properties", which has been published in Leningrad in 1926.

SFA 318

Petr Shvetsov

From "Swamps" series. 2008.

Oil on canvas.

151x180 cm

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Petr Shvetsov

From "Swamps" series. 2008.

Oil on canvas.

170x220 cm

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Petr Shvetsov

From "Swamps" series. 2008.

Oil on canvas.

160x200 cm

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For this reason "Swamps" is not a series of paintings in the strict sense, but a circle of works united by a single theme, by the initial desire to observe in maximum proximity the etymological essence of the swamps, its picturesque depth.

- Dmitry Ozerkov

BESTIARY.

The paintings in the series demonstrate the artist's signature style, explicitly referencing Dutch 17th-century still lifes. The deep black background plays a significant role: this is what creates the desired optical effect that seems to envelop objects in emptiness, while at the same time pushing them to the foreground in all their selfhood and presence. It seems that nothing is actually happening in these works, but they document how things are present in the here and now, how they exist as separate pieces of a cohesive universe.

The series resembles the gallery of a fetishist who maniacally pursues the object of his obsession: half-naked bodies, flesh-colored nylon stockings, lace bras, petticoats and combinations of undergarments are captured in their undisguised delicacy and shamelessness.

SFA 318

Petr Shvetsov

Greta. 2020.

Oil on canvas.

80х60 cm

Petr Shvetsov

Martina. 2020.

Oil on canvas.

80х60 cm

Petr Shvetsov

Christine. 2020.

Oil on canvas.

80х60 cm

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SFA 318

Petr Shvetsov

Johanna. 2020.

Oil on canvas.

80х60 cm

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Petr Shvetsov

Alessandra. 2020.

Oil on canvas.

80х60 cm

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Petr Shvetsov

Iren. 2020.

Oil on canvas.

80х60 cm

Petr Shvetsov

Rosalind. 2020.

Oil on canvas.

150x110 cm

The sensual may perplex the viewer at first. It is disconcerting in its candor and straightforwardness, making it awkward to gaze at and examine these intimate transparent materials and folds. But like everything that is taboo and normally hidden from prying eyes, it holds your gaze and draws your eye over the silky and lacy surfaces again and again. The beauty of the depiction, the defamiliarisation of the objects, and their manifested sensuality both fascinate and repulse, or even frighten us — yet through them we encounter ourselves. Because what is captured by the artist and the way these things are captured contain the eye of the beholder, and what we see has long been looking at us.

Based on the text by Lizaveta Matveeva