A viewer of Alexey Klokov’s works will experience a wide variety of powerful sensations. One may initially be impressed with the bombastic statements developed within each canvas. Expansive spaces created within the picture plane draw the viewer into the beauty of a city reflected in a golden sunrise, or the stillness of a walk along an avenue at night hemmed in on both sides by impressive walls of towering skyscrapers. Explosions of color in an abstract canvas erase the self and allow the viewer to be drawn completely into the experience of the now. Then, as easily as one is impressed by the boldness of a canvas, one may become utterly delighted by the musical arrangement of brushstrokes meant to capture the viewer’s imagination. A simple still life of a floral arrangement, the unequivocal touchstone of Western visual arts, distilled down to its formal base by directional brushstrokes seems the standard fair of a working artist. However, those same brushstrokes enrapture the viewer by revealing themselves to be a veritable cornucopia of color and improvisation. And that is the beauty of Klokov’s work. By abstracting and simplifying his subject matter, the artist is able to create a supremely complex exploration of the various elements of painting that traverse the breadth of the art historical narrative. He dances gracefully and effortlessly between styles and genres of painting. For a less developed painter, this exploration of themes would seem schizophrenic. However, Klokov is able to draw these disparate parts into a unifying whole that is identifiable as the work of a true virtuoso.

And his work has not gone unappreciated. This is an artist whose exhibitions have spanned the world. Mostly shown in Russia, Klokov has also exhibited in Japan, the UK, Austria, and the US, and he can be found in dozens of collections. Klokov began his career under the tutelage of an artist named Anatoly Zverev, who fostered and guided the Alexey’s improvisational eye. He then went on to study at the Leningrad Higher School of Art and Industry, then to the workshops of the Hermitage and the Tretyakov gallery. There he worked first hand with the works of the artists who would be key inspirations, such as Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh, Malevich, Kandinsky and many more. From those formative years, he has grown to be a favorite of collectors from all walks of life, from politicians and financiers to prominent members of show-business and other artists. Because his work includes inspiration from and elements of such a wide variety of sources, it is easy to see why his work has become so popular for so diverse a group.

In his landscapes and cityscapes, Klokov is able to draw the viewer into an entire universe of his own devising that draws together the disparate elements of the sublime and concrete. His Reflection series creates vistas that stun the viewer with images akin to Jungian dreamscapes, obliterating the ego and allowing the unconscious mind to explore the fullness of its emotion, soaring through the spaces ignoring the liminality of the picture plane. While this impulse to simply exist within the depth of the work is incredibly intoxicating, it is important as well to see the fullness of each composition and its place within the rich art historical tapestry from which Klokov draws his inspiration. Elements of Hundertwasser, Matisse, and Van Gogh intertwine to allow the interplay of concrete and sublime. In Shining Venice, representational, organized composition dominates the upper portion of the picture plane, above the bisecting diagonal, allowing the viewer to feel the presence of the city in glowing orange. However, below the bisecting line, drifting forms create a surreal depth that deconstructs the concrete above which prompts a cognitive drift from the concrete into the sublime. This dialectic is found in many of Klokov’s pieces, driving a contemplation of where our conscious and unconscious minds meet. The same elements can be found in certain examples from the artist’s Harmony of Two series, such as the piece City Lights. Here, the division is just as clear, but it is the ground the figures stroll upon which is, if the reader will forgive the pun, concrete. The area above the two figures fades out of the easy representation and into the realm of the abstract and dreamlike.

A similar usage of division can be found in Klokov’s still life and naturalist works. Compositions which focus on the central point, capturing the viewer’s gaze upon the subject, highlight reality in the same concrete terms. Then, in exploration of the rest of the surface, the real drops away in favor of sublime color and space. These subjects of scrutiny exist in a reality entirely their own, drifting in the miasma of color supporting them. We are invited to see them as examples of the real world, but only insofar as they are dreamlike representations appearing out of the unconscious. Instead of a hard liminal composition, these pieces work in a much more beguiling separation. Further supporting the subject’s usage as simple icon of the real, works such as Spring Solo from the Awakening series utilize a pseudo-primitivism in form. Instead of complex naturalism, the wings are gossamer screens which barely reveal the sea of dark greens in the case of Spring Solo, the most prominent element is the body of the bumblebee — so bright and powerful that the wings attached to it are almost completely lost. It proclaims itself as the most powerful aspect of the subject, most iconographically significant to the exclusion of all else.

The separation of sublime and concrete is further explored in Klokov’s abstract pieces, where elements of improvisational, almost frenetic brushwork are laid atop measured, impressionistic base layers. The artist explores his own vocabulary of elements much like Kandinsky’s compositions, so that the viewer can touch on almost recognizable forms and explore their meaning within their own context. Practically literally in the case of his painting Autobiography where the measured color of the background supports a kind of writing in tongues. Many roman letters stand out as well as Cyrillic characters, but the meaning must become an intensely personal one in the face of no deciphering document. These elements are distinct from the base layers much like in the artist’s still life paintings, creating depth and focus. This interplay can be construed as the creation of a dialectic, a painting atop a painting so interconnected that one cannot separate from the other.

Klokov’s penchant for the creation of dialectics has been commented on numerous times, especially in terms of his choices of palette. It is a sophisticated method of superposition, separation, and movement that pulls the viewer’s eye from moment to moment within the canvas. He dances through the divisions masterfully with choices which would make the Fauvists proud. Deep fields of red and orange, offset and highlighted by blues and greens to create a comprehensive whole. The palettes of his work a masterful decision that supports his inquiries into truth. Every placement of divisional dark is a foundational framework of the ephemeral swath of light.

The dance of light and dark, warm and cool, is further supported by the artist’s impasto dimensionality. Klokov builds thick surfaces across his picture planes that add a richness to the canvas. This decision provides a stability to the composition which might otherwise give way to pure ephemerality. However, with their presence, Klokov is able to further develop the divergent parts into a cohesive wholeness. The viewer is overcome by the feeling that the impressionistic brushstrokes have a realness, a believability that like a vivid dream sweeps one away into the created universe of the picture.

The fullness of Klokov’s compositions which encompass a wide array of styles and inspirations draw the viewer ever further into contemplation of the sensations evoked by his talent and vision. Accidental lines work across deliberate fields, the natural is composed atop the abstract, and light interacts with dark to provide a vision of contemplation. Though many artists try to involve wildly different elements in their work so as to create dialectics, a quality of being “this” yet also “that”. Klokov deftly avoids the pitfall of simply setting color or composition in opposition to itself. Instead of creating artworks that are at war with themselves, he incorporates these elements to form delicate interactions of positions where the elements work in concert in a search for artistic truths. The collected works in this exhibition are an excellent sampling of just that search for truth, and an invitation to join in an exploration of Alexey’s universe.

Nolan A. Goodyear