The painter Sergey Popolsin
Sergey was born in 1964 in the Far East of Russia, in a small Taiga village in the district of Chabarovsk, but spent his childhood and school years in the West Sibirian town of Mariinsk. Although pencil and paints were his constant companions during his youth, he only thought seriously about becoming an artist during his last year at school.
In 1982, after having left high school, Sergey tried to be accepted by the College of Art in Irkutsk, but without any adequate practice this first venture was doomed to failure. He realised that a mere natural talent without any relevant academic qualifycations was simply not enough. For months he intensively studied the subject, and in 1983 passed the entrance examination at the Irkutsk College of Art. However, family matters forced him to discontinue his studies half a year later. He did two years military service, returned home and decided to hang up painting for ever. Sergey worked as electrician repairing domestic appliances and tried to forget his paints. He lasted a whole year, but a talent gifted by the gods, and the heart’s desire to be creative cannot be suppressed. He returned to Irkutsk and sat the exam at the college once again. Because of the high level of his work, the examining committee decided that he will be admitted as a second year student.
Sergey immersed himself into the study programme, attended additional evening courses for drawing given by leading tutors and absorbed with enthusiasm all he needed to know. To become familiar with the techniques of old masters, he spent many hours in art galleries, missed not a single art exhibition, experimented reproduction with many different materials and paints, copied sections of works of Renaissance and Impressionist artists, and studied Russian iconography. Sometimes, he simply packed just a few things and took himself off to the Baikal Lake to study. This insatiable hunger for work and the desire to be at one with nature left deep marks upon him.
In 1989, the relationship between Sergey and some of his teachers became difficult and the latent incomprehension between them grew stronger. At that time the generally held idea of socialist realism still played an extremely important role in creative art. The unspoken laws of the Soviet hierarchy did not allow disobedience in art. To gain a foothold in the official artists‘ circles was nearly impossible without self-humiliation and bowing and scraping; to merely dream of having one’s own exhibition was absolutely hopeless. Acquaintances and friends always advised Sergey to remain level-headed, to stop his artistic experiments and to continue quietly, without drawing attention to himself, along the proven path. But Sergey did not want to do what was required of him, he could not be someone else’s tool.
For that reason, he left the college in 1990. He was surrounded by a thick wall of ignorance; housing problems, severe everyday worries and the abruption of the already very scarce contact to his son which was imposed on him have intensified the looming crisis. In the same year, in an outburst of despair and hopelessness, Sergey attempted to commit suicide and as a consequence lost his eyesight to the full extent (medical report: damage of the optical tract as a cause of a shot through the head).
Since then he has been shrouded in black, impenetrable darkness, but has not given in. His desire to be creative and his indelible striving for beauty have remained with him. Having recovered from the consequences of the traumatic events, he took up painting again. After a number of serious quarrels with some of his friends he burnt all his paintings which he had done so far and were lying around, whereby only one picture was accidentally saved.
All the experience he had gathered when he was still able to see, he had to recollect in the absolute darkness, to systematise it somehow, and to put it in order in his mind. In this new situation Sergey was forced to adjust his artistic abilities to suit his own physical possibilities.
As he was unable to check himself during his work progress, he invented small aids. He has to think through, from beginning to end, to the last brush stroke, all the work stages for a painting. He has to make all the preliminary sketches and drafts for the future painting in his head, and constantly has to force his imagination to remain active. At the beginning, Sergey painted his pictures ala prima, in one stroke. But soon he was able to manage again multi-layered painting by using a technique of transparency combined with paste and three-dimension. To enable him to orientate himself quickly and without problems in the space of his painting and to return several times to certain details, he inserts long, thin needles in individual, precisely thought-out points of the composition; sometimes, to be able to solve complicated tasks, he has to use different cardboard patterns which he has cut out beforehand as aid.
To ensure that he does not mix up his paints and to be able to paint independently, he has evolved his own system of markings. With a knife he makes differently shaped cuts into the closures of the paint tubes which he then can identify quite easily with his fingers. This way he is able to find his way freely in the rather complex world of colours and to choose correctly the necessary colour scale for his painting. All seems quite simple, but sometimes the unique shadings and nuances of the colours touch the observer to the quick.
A year after the tragedy his friends helped him to organise a small exhibition in the exhibition hall of the Artists‘ Association in Irkutsk. However, it did not produce a definite reaction among the art experts, the established painters and the young artists. Opinions ranged from absolute rejection to sheer amazement. Many simply refused to believe that Sergey works alone, without any help. They were particularly impressed by the apparent simplicity - a composition without words -, the interesting colour combinations and shadings of painting. This exhibition was artistically very encouraging for Sergey.
Polish artists, who were in Irkutsk at the time, invited him afterwards to a plenary workshop in Poland. Then followed invitations to Moscow galleries and museums.
In 1993, destiny led Sergey to meet in Moscow the producer Alexander Mikrikov who a short time later made in the Central Studio for Documentary Films the extraordinary motion picture “And then I saw...” about the life and artistic work of Sergey. The film has already been shown several times by the Central Russian Television. Newspapers and magazine reported more and more about this impressive artist, who was not crushed by the difficulties and trials of life.
Despite of many travels, Sergey works very hard. The span of themes and genre of his paintings is quite wide. His artistic works cannot be assigned to any specific art direction. For each idea, which he wants to express on canvas, he first searches for and evolves a technical solution, so that he can portray it as complex as possible.
One cannot look at Sergey’s painting with indifference. They are filled with a strong inner energy. They combine life’s impulsive power of expression in harmony with deep peace. Each individual painting attunes the observer to a silent dialogue which needs no words.
It is not difficult to recognise familiar features of our environment in the subject of the compositions, landscapes and still lifes, but on looking closer one sees on the canvas not the exterior, the visible cloak but the inner, deeper content of the subjects, their essence.
Apart from the many emotional experiences and feelings, all Sergey’s works have one thought in common: to be able to see, it does not suffice just to look.
MASLOBOEV Evgeny
Methodizer and Art Teacher
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