MOSCOW.- Yulia Chmelenko, the curator, recently opened the exhibition, “Suro: Moments of Encounter” on the ground floor of 4 Zhukovsky Street.
Describing her curatorial philosophy, Yulia Chmelenko said, “Like writing and reading, I see curating as another means to converse, discern, and inspiration.”
Suro’s works call forth feelings and awaken parallel worlds which to some extent exist withing each one of us. They evoke shapes and images from a thousand years of history, through a fabulous alphabet which speaks to the child withing us all while at the same time appealing to our more adult and cultivated selves.
Paintings, chosen with rare sensitivity by Yulia, speak a language at once both close to us and distant, both contemporary and remote, both open and concealed. The silence of the figures and the enigmas of the scenes speak without speaking.
The two works in the exhibition, "The Meeting" (50x60 cm, oil on canvas, 2019) and "Welcome Back" (1,10x1,11 cm, oil on canvas, 2020) are dotted with metaphors. Suro, Yulia Chmelenko believes, tries to make the mysterious world of his imagination visible, providing the key to interpreting his works so that the onlooker may enter the labyrinth of his images and seek its innermost essence, moving in and out of this maze at all, or even becoming lost in it.
Some of Suro’s paintings are untitled. As Yulia Chmelenko explains, this action is deliberate because we do not want to place limitations upon the viewer. Knowing that there are multiple ways to interpret visual art, we invite the viewer to find an entry point into the artist's paintings so that they can form their own impressions. Without having to focus upon a title, the viewer is free to make new discoveries both within the painting and within themselves.
Yulia Chmelenko believes artists are “guides for renewed ways of seeing, feeling, and sensing the world.” When the art world returns to its pre-war state, the curator will continue to create the “moments of encounter” between artworks and viewers that give meaning to the artists’ work.
Suro was born in Georgia, in Tbilisi in 1952. The artist is known for his colorful paintings with abstract figures.
His early works were shown at the exhibition of young Soviet artists in 1990 in Beijing, China. In 1990-1997 his works were exhibited in popular Moscow venues, including the Central House of Artists, Victor Tarasov Gallery. Personal exhibition of the artist was opened in 1998 in Bonn, Germany. His next personal exhibition was shown at Centre Culturel de Russie in Paris. Several exhibitions were shown at Central Manege in Moscow in 2000, 2004 years.
Suro’s works are owned by the Modern Art Museums in Toronto and Seoul. Significant paintings of the artist are held at the private collections in Russia, France, Germany, Switzerland and the USA.
Suro lives and works in Moscow.
- Mark Sokolov, art critic
