Dimitri Kozyrev
www.breeselittle.com 30d Great Sutton Street London, EC1V 0DU
Private View: 6 – 9 pm, 16th April Show runs: 17th April – 1st June
Dimitri Kozyrev’s joyously complex paintings revitalize the idealism and vigour of an earlier time, recalling Kandinsky’s own radiant abstractions and, in their hints of representation, those by Arshile Gorky.
– Annie Buckley, Critics’ Pick, Artforum, Autumn 2012
This will be Dimitri Kozyrev’s first solo exhibition in London. Presenting recent canvases and a selection of drawings, Dimitri Kozyrev will introduce the Tucson-based artist’s practice where the inheritance of modern history and the avant-garde collide in colourful abstraction
Born in St Petersburg and trained in California, Kozyrev negotiates his Soviet roots at the intersection between physical and mental landscapes. Expansive vistas are constructed with flat, planar passages overlaid by bright slices and geometric forms. Clues of familiarity are disrupted with a change in direction or palette, overriding coherent interpretation but suggesting splinters of memory. Nevertheless, hints of sparse fir trees and hunched figures are handled alike, charting the impact of the ruins of war on human and geographical memory.
Kozyrev draws parallels between the current political and military polemic and past totalitarian regimes, employing elements of Cubist and Constructivist artistic styles in this dialogue. Referencing Duchamp and Malevich, Kozyrev questions the direction of the ‘cutting edge’ of contemporary art, which he perceives to have been blunted in recent years. His post-industrial drawings offer scenes of decrepit buildings abandoned in the detritus of departed civilisation, their functionality withdrawn and slow decay inevitable. Without the electric warmth of the painted scenes, these bleak corners are forgotten scars waiting to be reclaimed by their surroundings.
About The Artist
Dimitri Kozyrev (b. 1967, Leningrad, USSR) lives and works in Tucson, AZ. He received his MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara (2000) and BFA from Ohio University, Athens (1997). Recent solo exhibitions include ??????? (Mirror), Mark Moore Gallery, Culver City (2012), Last One, Benrimon Contemporary, New York (2011), Retrospective, David Richard Contemporary, Santa Fe (2010), Lost Edge, Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica (2009) and Space/Vision/Perception, Gulf Coast Museum of Art, Largo (2006). Kozyrev’s work has been featured in group shows at the Krasnoyarsk VIII Biennale, The Tuscon Museum of Art (2009) and the Santa Monica Museum of Art (2004). Kozyrev’s work is featured in the Berkus Family Collection, The Wellington Collection and UCSB Art Museum. He is the recipient of the Abrams Prize (CA) and Art Omi Residency (NY). Kozyrev is represented by Mark Moore Gallery, Los Angeles.
