Exhibition of April 2016

The Open Door

After the big stage deliberately kept secret from the viewer's creativity and as a result, a sufficiently long "without-exhibition" length of time, Alexey Filippov represents projects in a chronological and conceptual sequence. Prior extremely important creative period was characterized by the processes of searching and development of concept (2007 - 2012). Works created at that time, were united by the artist in the exhibitions "Topography of the form" (Museum of Nonconformist Art, Saint-Petersburg, 2014) and "Polyphony of the form" (gallery "Borey", Saint-Petersburg, 2015), where were presented amplitudinous program canvases and  became independent graphic sketches. For works of this period, defining a conceptual vector, given by the artist, became the relation between the form and the background; it is they, and not the plot, were works drama. As a result of the complex location and birth of form the figures on canvases by Alexey Filippov unified almost up to the mark. The artist worked with the form, abandoning the knowledge of it, from its identification, which will inevitably occur in our minds, enabling us to "recognize" the objects of the surrounding material world. In an effort to refusal from the usual, right-actuated human mechanism of form identification, of associative experience, the artist created a story about of new form recognition, of as if for the first time appearing the eye, and its "marking". In parallel with the development and implementation of this idea was formed recognizable visual language, one of the features of which has been and remains to date the author's technique of acrylic painting of a multi-stage, with the rejection of the use of white and application of thin glazes.

The exposition of the exhibition project "The Open Door" are works of a new creative phase, painted from 2012 to 2015. Alexey Filippov explores the genres of still life, landscape, interior, referring as a plot basis for future works to the spaces surrounding the author's daily - art studio with props for still lives and art materials, interior of dacha, filled with everyday objects, to the ascetic landscape. Artist evinces a clear recognizable form after a long period of work on its marking. However, the simplest form is the result of a creative search, for which the obvious complex aesthetic and mental work.

Almost every image the interior of the artist's studio or dacha there is an important semantic detail - open or semi-open door, and sometimes - a window. In the metaphysical sense, these images can be viewed as a kind of symbol of state change, transition beyond the limits of something. This idea is consonant with the philosophy of the current stage of the artist's creativity. After passage, the author says, "quarry" of conceptual form, he comes to the ease of its reproduction, "opening the door" perception of the painting to the viewer.

This idea is embodied in the author's plastic system of a transparent painting, which the artist uses now at the nature and in the plot. In spite of the technical diversity of works (as the materials are the acrylic, oil, oil pastel, colored pencil) defining for the artist becomes a decision of painting problem. Filling of forms with color occur on the author's multi-stage circuit when the final color is not the result of mixing, and visibility through each other the paint layers, while at times the artist refuses insulating soil (which was typical for the works of the preceding period). Thus is formed a sensitive and vital color surface.  As in the earlier painting, the works of the new project is not the traditional sculpting of volumes depicted objects by means of light and shade, etc., there is no obvious tonal peaks - color that artist fills the forms, is equivalently active. The forms are distinguished by schematicism and lack of quirkiness, especially in landscapes where repetition and alternation of simplified form constitute a multi-faceted landscape. An important compositional "hero" in the works of A. Filippov, as before, is the line - persistent and contrast, it sets the rhythm of the work, sometimes gently, but firmly defines the boundaries of the image planes, sometimes - clots and interlacing lines (in the landscapes) are bone-basis for the entire composition. The peculiarity of landscapes also become "impossible" point of looking - the artist presents the viewer with a kind of bird's-eye view. But always in the background, very high, Alexey Filippov leaves the horizon, separating the planes of the earth and the sky. Similarly an image of a door and a window, the horizon, so often found in the works of artists of the Leningrad underground, is the boundary between different states, the transition to another plane, including the metaphysical transition into another dimension, the discovery and acquisition of a new. This exhibition project for Alexey Filippov became the result of the discovery and development of new great story, leading the beginning of the last creative stage to the endless search.

Alexandra Malinova
art critic