The first thought that enters the mind when seeing Russian painter Nikas Safronov’s 70 displayed pieces is how these cheesy paintings, with their toxic green forests, clear blue skies and massive frames of fake gold ever got to the height of fame.
But a closer look reveals the more subtle sides of his work. The painting of a kitchen-garden features a strange bubble flying above some lettuce, the painted forest turns out to be inhabited by pixies, and the city scenery shows the translucent figure of a giant.
These bits of surrealism are, in fact, the only feature that distinguishes the works by Russia’s most famous and highest-paid artist from the decorative tailings of art that are offered to tourists on the corner of Andriyivskiy Uzviz and Volodymyrska Street.
Safronov, 57, is best known as a portraitist of the rich and powerful. He never reveals the price of his pieces, but Russian media claim that one fetches up to $200,000. The artist’s medieval-style apartment in central Moscow reportedly costs around $70 million, which could serve as indirect proof of his sky-high prices.
There is hardly anyone in Russia’s and Ukraine’s top-flight politics, business world and show business who has not commissioned a portrait from this phenomenal artist. His show in Kyiv includes portraits of several prominent Russian actors, Ukraine’s former president Leonid Kuchma, singer Oleh Skrypka, Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov and some Western celebrities like Robert De Niro, Nicole Kidman and even British Prince William.
Some subjects of his portraits wear medieval clothes, mimicking classical portraits of the 15-17th centuries, and are a part of Safronov’s famous The River of Time series. Painstakingly detailed and obviously highly skillful, those portraits nevertheless look a lot like they were manipulated. Moreover, they are wacky and tasteless.
But some surreal details on Safronov’s pictures leave an even worse impression. To anyone who as much as glanced at a couple of Salvador Dali’s works, the careful but meaningless surrealism of Safronov looks roughly the equivalent of a track suit at a Viennese ball.
That doesn’t bother Safronov’s fans. Around 100 art lovers attended the Dec. 4 opening of the exhibition at the Kyiv History Museum – almost all of them women who came within the first hour.
One was Alina Koniayeva, a private painting tutor, who considers Safronov a genius and says that seeing the exhibits gives her “a lump in the throat.”
“His work is a mix of Salvador Dali, Flemish painting and early impressionism,” she says, adding that it’s still very subtle and not vulgar at all.
The rich “golden” frames, Koniayeva says, prove that Safronov has respect for his work. Some don’t agree.
Another woman told the Kyiv Post that the frames are “a clear bourgeois style,” which appeals to his potential clients. The woman, who said she was an art historian who works in another Kyiv museum, refused to give her name, saying that her fellow art critics will laugh at her for visiting Safronov’s exhibition. She carefully added that she likes “some of the composition tricks,” meaning the surrealistic details in the paintings, but explained that Safronov’s works are certainly unoriginal.
Nina Khorodach, a publishing house employee and art enthusiast, was equally unimpressed by the exhibition. Safronov, she says, certainly has talent, but what he paints is “not really sincere.”
“I think sometimes he manages to find that moment of candidness, you can see it in some of his works. But often it looks like he wants to satisfy the audience, not express his view,” Khorodach says.
“On the other hand,” she continues, “what if Safronov just naturally sees everything so decorative? We all want to see beautiful things, after all. Maybe he does.”
The show runs through Feb. 16 at the Kyiv History Museum on 7 Bohdana Khmelnytskoho Street near the Teatralna metro station.
Kyiv Post Lifestyle editor Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected].
