Alexey Golovin Russia, b. 1977

Biography

Russia

Alexey Golovin is an established painter from Russia whose work has been featured in exhibitions internationally. The artist successfully blends tradition and modernity in his work, demonstrating great mastery of light and depth. The artist himself describes his practice in the following words: “The most important thing in painting for me is beauty. You can choose an awful subject, a tragedy, for instance, but you must try to paint a beautiful and expressive picture.”

Alexey grew up in the art studio, taking all the artistic inspiration and knowledge in from early years, as both of Alexey’s grandfather and farther were also artists. Later in his life, Alexey went to an art school for 5 years and then he continued his studies in Repin’s Fine Art Academy in Saint Petersburg for 6 years.

Over the years, Alexey Golovin has developed his own style and a set of the themes he likes to explore. Alexey blends tradition and modernity in his work and demonstrates his great mastery of light and depth in the composition. The subject matter themes he addresses are figurative scenes, inspired by Greek Mythology, still life, landscape, and portraiture. The artist associates himself with Neo Academism and his art is deeply inspired by Caravaggio, Pieter Paul Rubens, Jan van Huysum. Amongst all the masterpieces created, Alexey admires The Allegory of Painting by Vermeer.

The artist believes that the role of the artist in the 21st century is secondary:

“The world is hectic and is constantly moving somewhere in a rush. Nowadays, we have new technologies that changed the world. And artist and art in general cannot tolerate the rush. Phones, computers, and social media do not leave any space and time for the meditation and mesmerising.”

The artist works very slowly and meticulously, until he is satisfied with the result. His seminal artwork is Odyssey 2006, which took him around 1 year to complete. It is a very large-scale painting, 275 x 800 cm in size, and with the total weight of the canvas and its stretch bars of 300 kg. Alexey got inspired to create this painting after reading the poem ‘Odyssey’ by Homer. The main idea behind this painting is the celebration of the justice and inevitability of the retribution.

Exhibitions