Possessed by Art
Alexandre Evgrafov
by Yuri Kuchinsky
A visit to Alexandre Evgrafov's Toronto studio is like a visit to some wonderful alternative universe, replete with a myriad of
glowing colors, and interspersed with sinuous, winding shapes of his line drawings.
Alexandre's works encompass quite a variety of artistic styles and mediums — whether it be the landscapes or urban scenes, still lives
or the sensual nudes. He does them all in his own inimitable style
and his great passion for his art is everywhere to observe.
Some people find their passion for art later in life, but Alexandre
was born to it. His father was also a professional artist, so
Alexandre started to get his art lessons by the age of four.
He grew up surrounded by canvasses and artists, breathing in the aroma
of paint from his earliest age.
Alexandre Evgrafov was born and grew up in Azerbaijan, then still a
part of the USSR, but now an independent republic with considerable
oil wealth. Baku, his hometown, and the republic's capital, is close to the Iranian border.
Baku is a large and quite beautiful port city on the Caspian Sea. The
climate is fairly warm, so this was quite far from the Russian
winters. There are the mountains that run up to the shore, and many
monumental buildings, some of them very old, and inspired by Islamic
architecture.
While Evgrafov's family were Russian, the native population of this area is
Azerbaijani, and their language is close to Turkish. There were also quite a few other nationalities that made their home
there.
Alexandre grew up in this rather cosmopolitan atmosphere, where the
sights and sounds of the East are everywhere. Having finished his High
School in Baku — and already an accomplished artist by that
time — he was accepted into the prestigious Academy of Fine Art in
St. Petersburg (then still Leningrad), which was his childhood dream.
He began his studies in St. Petersburg in 1975, which he continued for
about ten years. Now he was living and studying in this city of
incredible beauty, where history is everywhere. The Tsars certainly
spared no expense to furnish the city with all sorts of impressive
buildings, palaces, great cathedrals and monuments, which have always
provided ample inspiration for artists.
Of course, the instruction in the Academy tended for the most part to
'Socialist Realism' — a very realistic style of painting, influenced
rather heavily by classicism and the art of the Renaissance.
Nevertheless, for a young artist, this type of a training was not
without its advantages, because it tended to instill a very
thoroughgoing and disciplined approach to artistic representation and
a closer relationship to the object being portrayed.
In those latter years of the Soviet Union, the barriers to expression were
already breaking down, and there was much greater freedom for students, as well
as for their teachers, to pursue their own inspiration in art. While in the Academy, Alexandre
continued to work very hard, and he studied in depth all areas of
visual representation, such as the use of light, shadow, composition,
color and perspective.
After he received his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1986, Alexandre
worked for a while as a restorer of old murals in Suzdal, a small
Russian town that is very famous for its old icons and monasteries.
Some of his paintings clearly reveal the inspiration he derived from
the Russian Orthodox religious art, with all its quiet and serene
beauty.
But by then, the USSR was already entering a period of social and
economic turmoil, that culminated in its dissolution in 1991, and then
even more turmoil. Around that time, some Canadian friends
helped Alexandre to come to Toronto, where he settled down and has worked
ever since.
Alexandre Evgrafov lives and breathes art. Not even a day passes when
he doesn't sketch or paint something or somebody. As he says,
"I cannot recall one day in my life that I didn't do something related
to the world of art, be it painting or sketching, studying the works
of the great artists of the past, practicing my technique, or going to
galleries and exhibitions."
The common thread through all of Alexandre's art is his ability to
underline, and to bring out the beauty of the world around us. The
strong pulse of his talent beats in everything he paints, giving
gardens, buildings and people new life. Ultimately, Alexandre believes
that art should delight and inspire its audience, and help the viewer
to see a deeper meaning and significance even in some of the common
and everyday things, that we have already seen many times in the
past. Through his paintings, Alexandre tries to communicate some of
the joy and wonder of the world that he feels as he creates.
"I'm really just an intermediary," Alexandre says. "The big world out
there is full of sights and images, but they are usually haphazard and
disordered — they often jumble upon our perceptions and assault them. I see it as my job to bring order out of chaos, in a manner of
speaking, and to distil those things that are especially important to
see -- to bring out the inner essence of things."
Alexandre's considerable training in classical art is certainly seen very clearly in his portraits, of which he has been doing quite a fair
number over the years. These are truly masterful representations of
individuals or groups of people — indeed, they are almost like
complex psychological studies, where the personality of the person
being portrayed truly comes alive.
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Title: Contemplation
Artist: Alexandre Evgrafov
Image Courtesy: Alexandre Evgrafov
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Some influence from the Impressionists can be felt in Alexandre's
portrayals of flowers, and in his still life works.
Title: Pomegranates
Artist: Alexandre Evgrafov
Image Courtesy: Alexandre Evgrafov
In these paintings, one can see delicate, interweaving webs of color, so
vibrant and cheerful, almost exuberant in the way they reach out to
the viewer. Such paintings can bring joy to any room where they will
find themselves.
Some of Alexandre's most remarkable paintings are his nudes, these
shimmering and often quite erotic representations of female figure.
These can be seen as extended meditations on the eternal beauty of the
female that are frozen in time and space. He uses a variety of mediums
in these paintings, such as oil, encaustic, and mixed media.
Of course, the mystery of human sexuality is a subject that inspired a
great many artists in the past, but Alexandre brings his own
understanding and skills to these things, and succeeds in representing
the human body in the ways that are uniquely his. One can read a
variety of emotions in these paintings — the unqualified admiration,
awe at confronting such remarkable beauty, the great joy of a lover
finding a kindred soul to share his or her feelings and emotions. There's the glory of love there,
in all its beauty, yes — but perhaps, sometimes, even some hints of the
frustrations of love as well.
There are also many paintings by Alexandre that can be described as
psychological and even 'psychoanalytic' in nature. These paintings
explore our dream world in ways that are mysterious and
thought-provoking. For example, in his painting entitled The Dream,
done in the shades of blue, we see a little girl deep in her sleep, where the
background represents the spreading swirls of a great spiral, looking very much
like a picture of some far away galaxy being born.
Title: The Dream
Artist: Alexandre Evgrafov
Image Courtesy: Alexandre Evgrafov
What could this
girl be dreaming about? Could it be the challenges of the life in front
of her, with all its great joys and inevitable frustrations? This
painting may symbolize the great mystery of human existence, itself,
with all its victories and bafflements, with all its cares and
insecurities, that are overcome again and again, and turned into
triumphs by those who have faith and persist.
The great energy that Alexandre brings to bear in his art is certainly
quite remarkable and awe-inspiring. He lives for art; his Muse will
not let go of him no matter what. Perhaps it is some of the vagaries
of his own life story — such as being born and raised in a country
that no longer exists, and growing up surrounded by a foreign,
Islamic-inspired culture — that give him the impetus to try a variety
of approaches in art, and a wide variety of styles and techniques.
Well, it has certainly been remarked before that our whole world seems
to be becoming more insecure; there appear to be more fears and
anxieties that surround us and our society. The clash of
civilizations may frighten us sometimes, but the way to deal with all
that may be to have a more secure focus on the things we believe in —
on the things that are truly important. Art is certainly one of
these; it is the vision of a great artist that can transcend fear and
negativity, and thus provide a new focus on life for all of us.
So, by dealing, through the medium of art, with the dilemmas and
challenges of his own life story, a great artist can also provide us
with a model of how we, ourselves, can also deal with the challenges
in our own lives — to show a way for all of us to transcend
adversity, and to triumph in our own life and works.
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