Personal exhibition “Ilya Rastaturin. Ten Painting Sketches”

Personal exhibition consisting of ten pieces of art is a hard format of presentation of art. Not three paintings that are easy to unite in an integral message and reflect an idea that agitates the artist for some time. And not a long retrospective in which art critics always find periods, cycles and internal relations. Ten painting compositions by Ilya Rastaturin are probably united by one thing, i. e. an impression that he got when painting from life. Ten pieces of art are supplemented with five large-scale photos from the archive of the artist that depict the process of creation, so to say a sacred thing that people almost never see. Equal combination of painting and photos in one exhibition in that case reflects the essence of this personal exhibition, because in its center there is the process of perception of the visible world by an artist.

So, what is so special about the vision of Ilya Rastaturin? What images, emotions and thoughts are hidden behind his vibrant and expressive manner of painting? What is more in his works, direct feelings or external artistic imitation of emotions? It is interpretation of the visible world processed by the soul of the artist, or a craft of a painter who successfully uses his experience and achievement of predecessors?

Career of any young artist has a period when he is like a warrior at crossroads and has to make a choice where to move forward. And the problem is that the choice between the “right” and “left” — as a rule — guarantees a young author neither verity of his/her creative way, nor success in career or fame. This is just identification of a person’s own way within an overall artistic process. According to the concept of the organizers, the exhibition “Ten Painting Sketches” for Ilya Rastatunin is such a crossroads.

If we remember his works that from time to time show up at different Petrozavodsk exhibitions, we cannot but notice, on the one hand, adherence to the traditions of the French school and Russian Cezannizm of the beginning of XX century, or, to be exact, their Soviet romantic versions of 1970 s (Nesterova, Arshakuni, Salakhov etc.). There are even closer examples as the language of Karelian artists — Mikhail Yufa, Ekaterina Pekhova, and Arkadii Morozov — can also be implicitly traced in the works of the young Petrozavodsk artist. Roots in a vast cultural layer are a definite advantage. At the same time, the period of accumulating and mastering classics should not become substitution for artist’s own way. Ilya Rastaturin has probably come to such critical point, and the outfit of a “young searching talented man” has become to tight for him. The evidence is professional quality of the 10 paintings presented at the exhibition. But what is next? This question we would like to ask together with the artist. Neoexpressionism? Neofovism? Neoabstractionism? Or totally new versions of plein air art? And what is today’s work of an artist with nature? Habitual tribute to traditions or an act of creativity close to actionism?

Those are not just futile questions at a time that is not very favorable to painting and when media art is boisterously developing as well as screen culture that are occupying exhibitions and museums now. In this context the position of young Karelian authors does not seem to be clear and conscious. In Russia artists are now working with new reality, and they are trying to comprehend today’s cultural context. Exhibitions started to show painting installations and things, painting performances, computed graphics made in oil on canvas not to mention innumerable versions of commercials, comics, covers of fashionable magazines, body art and other varieties and metamorphoses of conventional painting. What way will Ilya Rastaturin take is the question important not only for himself, but also for quite young new Karelian artists who follow him. One more challenge for this personal exhibition is to ponder about this eternally up-to-date issue.

Sergey Terentjev, artist

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