Vlady Kibalchich Russakov - Artistry

Artistry

Vlady was a painter, muralist and printmaker, and a leader of the contemporary art movement in Mexico. His main influences were Mexican muralism and French surrealism, even though he rejected both schools of painting. While initially inspired by the Mexican muralists, Vlady did not like their nationalist and didactic elements. Despite being of the Muralists’ age, he identified with younger Mexican artists looking to break away, called the Generación de la Ruptura. Vlady experimented with abstract elements but still keep a number of figurative elements such as the rays of the sun, sand, waves, etc. It was a minimalist expression but never reached full abstractionism.

While on a Guggenheim in New York in 1967 and 1968 he met artist Mark Rothko. This work troubled Vlady and when he returned to Mexico decided to return to figurative art. The most important canvas of this later work is the “Trotsky Trilogy.”

There were some marks of expressionism in his mature way of painting, but his acknowledged model was definitely the Italian Renaissance. Vlady lived amidst Caravaggio, Tiziano and Artemisia Gentileschi as if they were his contemporaries. Flemish and Dutch painting was a source of inspiration as well, in particular Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt. Many of his themes were borrowed from classical painting but distorted, ground into multiple fragments and reinvented. Essentially while he agreed with the younger painters in new images and figures, he did not believe in discarding traditional methods and techniques. He work contains images of sensuality, eroticism and politics. It also includes eight self portraits.

This protracted acquaintance with classical painting induced Vlady to paint according to the strictest techniques of his masters, using natural products such as egg yolk and earth powders, and entirely rejecting what he called industrial painting. He painted using layers of oil and varnish in order to give depth to his painting and to make the light leap out of the canvas. This insistence on classical technique induced Vlady to reject most contemporary art that he believed had forgotten the principles of good painting. He enjoyed saying: "If Picasso or Francis Bacon (artist) could come through a time channel and come to Verrocchio's studio, or Rafael Sanzio's, they would not last a week, they would be kicked out as bad painters…"