Vasya Lozhkin (born 1976) is a Russian primitivist painter who paints red cats that personify a simple man “from the people”, creepy old women and incredibly serious stern men with hard-edged facial expressions - real dubolomovs who have power and influence over this very simple man in the image of a red cat.
If we live, we won't die
In general, many of Lozhkin's drawings are rather harsh social satire, although the artist himself sometimes says that if a drawing depicts an old woman with an axe, it is just an old woman with an axe without any other meanings. He's lying, of course, but it's the only way to create in the present time.
Who hurt the kitten?
Vasya Lozhkin's real name is Alexei Kudelin, but most viewers and fans of his work call him Vasya Lozhkin, just as he once introduced himself in LiveJournal, where he published his first drawings.
Tonight you're playing thrash
By the way, Lozhkin has said in many interviews - and they are often and willingly taken from him - that he can not draw at all, in general, keeps “creative innocence”. But at the same time he doesn't even want to study, because “it's already too late”.
You'll be an oilman
But he respects Russian classic artists: Vasnetsov, Repin, Surikov, Shishkin, because “it is very beautiful”. But he is wary of modern art: “it's not my thing. I understand that an artist should open all the boils of society, create something strange, surrounding himself with verbal nonsense, but such things are somewhere on the periphery of my interests.
The devil in my head
Lozhkin started drawing from early childhood. But “everyone draws as a child, but most people give up, and I am not one of them. Many people say that I have an innate sense of humor. But I don't try to make anyone laugh in my paintings, like professional cartoonists, and I like more scary things. My first picture, which back in the 90's drew on a sheet of absorbent cotton found in a dumpster - it is a real thrash and horror. However, I quickly realized that people do not need such things, everyone prefers positivity, kitties or satire, so I create in this vein.
Snowflakes
“I think that a sense of humor is rather innate, but you need to understand clearly what you can joke about and what you can't, such knowledge is given through experience, often not always easy and pleasant. But drawing kittens is good and right, let everyone draw them, some of them are very good at it, like Henriette Ronner-Knip.
Henriette Ronner-Knip. Playful kittens
Henrietta Ronner-Knip. Mom's pride
Back then there was no Instagram and digital cameras, but the desire to admire cute kittens is probably in all people at all times, so the demand for such drawings was very high. But now just to draw cute realistic kittens is not my thing, there are other artists who draw better than me. But when you do it with some sense and humor, albeit not so skillfully, it is much easier for me to succeed in this business”.
Your jazz is foreign to us
“ However, you still have to get up off the couch to do it. Sometimes it happens that I have a good idea, inspiration, an idea that I would like to realize in a drawing. Then I say to myself “I must” and fight laziness. Besides, painting is also technical work, often quite tedious and monotonous. Mixing and preparing the paints, varnishing the painting when it is ready - it doesn't require inspiration, just a notion of what is necessary.
Homeland knows
“But my work is more about inspiration and imagination. I don't complain about it, I try to realize any interesting idea immediately, even in the form of a sketch”.
Left: mother oil, right: father gas
However, most of Lozhkin's fans are unlikely to buy his paintings, although the artist willingly trades them and they are his main source of income. Lozhkin says that nowadays popularity is not always identical to good earnings, especially in the genre in which he works.
He's the first to start
People just watch “funny pictures”, download them to their phones or post them on social networks, without thinking about the fact that the artist spent time and effort to write all this. They don't even consider them to be real art and real paintings, and view them as some kind of freely available caricatures.
Lady in the evening toilet
Even ardent fans of his work would rather print out a color poster than buy a genuine painting. But Lozhkin himself claims that the effect of the painting is much stronger, and one can only agree.
And they lived happily ever after
Most artists are not very fond of explaining the meaning of their paintings: “say, guess for yourself what I meant and in general, the incomprehensible seems great”. Lozhkin is not one of them; for many paintings he gives explanations written directly on the canvas.
This is no time to smile
He ironically explains this not by false modesty - “the desire for greatness, like all artists, is in my blood” - but by the desire to ward off unnecessary speculation by viewers who might think up something he wants nothing to do with. Therefore, Lozhkin does not like his drawings to illustrate various political publications, but even such a solid magazine as “Ogonyok” has repeatedly placed Lozhkin's drawings on the first page, which in itself is a definite indicator of quality and artistic merit. Lozhkin's work has long since outgrown the level of memes and social networks.
Come on, you can do it.
And here is a peculiar mimicry of all the characters in the paintings of Lozhkin - his personal, from the mirror. According to the artist so it is more convenient to work, and this technique was used by many cartoonists. He tried to hire any sitters, but all or take too expensive, or do not meet his requirements.
Vatnicek
However, Lozhkin has enough talent and sense of humor to create without any helpers and at a very high level, to the delight of all fans of his work.
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