LIFE IS HARD, BUT, THANKFULLY, BRIEF

Dmitry gutov

March 7 — March 23, 2014
Triumph gallery

Dmitry Gutov is reconsidering the heritage of classical art, specifically its "forgotten" and "rejected" phenomena, creating unique reminiscences. Gutov, throughout his artistic career, has worked in various genres, including photography, video, installations, drawing and painting, and he has created original spatial sculptures with iron. In his new exhibition, Life Is Hard, But, Thankfully, Brief, which will include over 80 works, the artist again returns to painting and to the themes which he touched upon in different periods from the end of the 1980s onwards.

Dmitry Gutov has spent the last few months in his studio in total isolation. There, from early morning until late evening he has been working without interruption, concentrating on his painting technique and the creative process. Again and again he depicted the same sweater, a branch or a Red October sweet wrapper, or noted down his favorite sayings, but on completing these works and finding himself unsatisfied with the results, he washed away what he had painted, repriming the canvas, and starting from scratch. Gutov went into a state akin to that of a Zen Buddhist, where any trivial object can be transformed by his brush through an inspired rhythm. Working like a master of calligraphy who over the course of his whole life perfects the writing of a single hieroglyph, Gutov turns to the studying of Meister Eckhart and his ideas of mystical communion with the absolute through the erasing of any and all images.

Vertiginous Movement
Oil on canvas
80 × 120 cm

Dmitry Gutov has spent the last few months in his studio in total isolation. There, from early morning until late evening he has been working without interruption, concentrating on his painting technique and the creative process. Again and again he depicted the same sweater, a branch or a Red October sweet wrapper, or noted down his favorite sayings, but on completing these works and finding himself unsatisfied with the results, he washed away what he had painted, repriming the canvas, and starting from scratch. Gutov went into a state akin to that of a Zen Buddhist, where any trivial object can be transformed by his brush through an inspired rhythm. Working like a master of calligraphy who over the course of his whole life perfects the writing of a single hieroglyph, Gutov turns to the studying of Meister Eckhart and his ideas of mystical communion with the absolute through the erasing of any and all images.

Dmitry Gutov is a participant of numerous exhibitions and biennales. His works are stored at The State Tretyakov Gallery, The State Russian Museum and Moscow Museum of Modern Art collections.

Dmitry Gutov works with photography, video, draws, paints, and he also creates large site-specific installations. Metallic spatial constructions, which are key in the artist’s work, cannot be fitted into a defined genre. This is not a sculpture and not an object the way it is. One can see what is depicted only from one angle, but thanks to the volume of the work, it shows to a viewer a new art piece from a different angle.