Evgeny Zubkov (1995 - present) is a Russian artist who creates digital art on graphic editors that combines a unique aesthetic of Soviet retrofuturism, a fresh look at the heroes of Slavic fairy tales, and even a somewhat ironic idea of what Spider-Man would look like in a Russian industrial city like Chelyabinsk. Now he boasts an extensive audience in social networks, collaborations with big brands and good earnings. In general, all the ingredients for success are present, although the road to it was not an easy one.
Russia 2077. The water was turned off again
Zubkov was born in the small closed Siberian town of Aleisk. According to him, his childhood was not fun: the only entertainment was a VCR with a Spider-Man series, which he learned almost by heart. But very early he began to draw, but when it came time to choose a specialty, entered at the insistence of his parents in the technical school for a lawyer. True, the law did not cause him any positive emotions, he realized that if he continued to work there, he would just go crazy from boredom. So he took his documents and went to study at the graphic design faculty.
Russia 2077. The Flying Seven
But he still needed to learn the basics of academic drawing. He had to turn to the only professional artist in Aleisk. But he was already a very old man and also practically deaf. Zubkov spent hours drawing various still lifes and tried to explain himself to his teacher by gestures. The same said that the more stupid student he had not seen and strongly advised to give up the class, saying that the artist from Zubkov still will not get. There was some truth in his words: Eugene was not all right with spatial thinking and understanding of perspective. But he had a lot of persistence: he studied and worked like a man possessed, realizing that this was his only chance to succeed in life and do what he loved. As a result, he passed the exam with 97 out of 100 points.
Russia 2077. A bum at the dump
During his studies, like many other students, he worked part-time at all sorts of little things: drawing logos, all sorts of advertising, tattoo designs for tattoo parlors. But all this did not attract him too much, served only as a way to earn money. Zubkov realized that he wanted to be seriously engaged in illustration and modern graphics. For his graduation project, he created an artbook, where he revisited the characters of Russian folk tales in his own way, presenting them as characters from some modern fantasy.
Snakehandler
However, these illustrations were not a great success: they were too standard and did not stand out from the rest.
In addition, Zubkov was seriously interested in calligraphy and developed his own font resembling a modernized version of the Old Slavonic script.
Zubkov's fonts and in the Channel One series
In 2020, Channel One launched the TV series “Messing's Apprentice”, which used elements of fonts created by Zubkov, that is, in fact, engaged in brazen plagiarism. The artist never filed a lawsuit, but the scandal was quite resonant.
Russia 2046 Flying Bus
In 2017, Zubkov created a series of Russia 2046 artworks. He managed to fancifully combine everyday life and modern technology. And, as it turns out, Zubkov's view is far from idealization and unbridled optimism in the spirit of the same First Channel. However, thanks to this, you believe in such a future much more.
Russia 2046. In cyberspace
Then there was a sensational series of works Russia 2077 with a flying seven, cyber schoolchildren on a routine checkup and all the same troubles and everyday problems like scheduled water shutoffs, slow Russian Post and “Bukhanka”, which instead of wheels attached four mechanical legs.
Russia 2077. Russian Post
These works were posted by dozens of the largest social networking groups, and they were also noticed by major media outlets, both Russian and foreign. However, it was often done without mentioning the author's name, but it was still a real success.
Russia 2077. Bukhanka on four legs
Zubkov was noticed and talked about. Representatives of many major brands, including Adobe, Uber, Valorant, Cyberpunk 2077, KFC, T-Bank, and VKontakte, offered their collaborations.
Northern Spider-Man
Then there was work on the Northern Spider-Man - here Zubkov decided to fulfill his childhood dream and present his own take on this character. It turned out to be at least original, and, according to Zubkov, this character fits in well with the Marvel Multiverse as a version from a parallel reality.
The Leshy object
There were also works from the series “Declassified photo archive of the Bureau of Anomaly Control”, where Zubkov tried to recreate the characters of Russian fairy tales in the style of the game “Stalker”. We have certainly not seen such a turnip.
Subject Repka
In any case, Zubkov's artworks are unusual and creative, which deservedly attracts attention. Perhaps they are far from the classical ideas about art, but the desire to look at familiar things from an unusual point of view is already interesting. And what do you think of Zubkov's works - write in the comments.
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