Petr Kirusha

Petr Kirusha - A Cat in a banana costume

Biography of the Artist: Petr Kirusha was born in 1978 in Dushanbe (Tajikistan), moved to Riga (Latvia). Lives and works in Moscow and Riga. Graduated from the Institute of Contemporary Art Problems (Moscow) and Higher Academic School of Graphic Design (Moscow). Petr Kirusha is an artist who first made a name for himself in 2008 at the Youth Biennale of Contemporary Art. At that time, he worked mainly on paper, with a complex technique for thickening gouache by adding paste to the paint, which allowed him to achieve an unusually intense corporeality, one might say tangibility, in his almost abstract subjects. Over time, through tireless experimentation with formats, materials and subjects, Petr came to a new understanding of form and color, linking them with digital optics. The pandemic played a major role in this: the artist says that social networks became a kind of plein air, and he drew views from the monitor every day. The figurative nature of the works became more obvious, and the nature of the brushstroke changed: mobile and plastic before, now it become more amorphous, deliberately weak - so that unpainted gaps, strips of white paper or primed canvas remain in the silhouettes of objects and figures. By retelling - or rather re-showing - the digital image, the author emphasizes its filmic, incomplete character, its fragility and corporeality. Social networks are portrayed as a world of desires, whims and mirages. Petr's works are in the collections of Caviar Factory (Henningsver), Zuzeum (Riga), Daniel & Florence Guerlain (Paris), Vladimir Smirnov and Konstantin Sorokin Foundation (Moscow), Kozlov Collection (Moscow), as well as in private collections.