Sergey Kononov 'Companions'

Pierre Bonnard wrote that the disposition of all painters is 'to examine the inner lives of human beings.' Sergey Kononov's recent paintings take on these words wholeheartedly. The seven paintings draw back the curtain to reveal intimate views of friendships cast in moments of repose, affection or contemplation. Kononov paints only what he sees, borrowing Gustav Courbet's manifesto of painting as a 'negation of the ideal' where reality is mirrored in every brushstroke.

 

But behind each painting is an ecology of diminutive marks, like pixels on a monitor screen, his pointillist method favouring subtle obfuscation over exact replication. He attends to every strand of hair or fold of fabric, yet always allows more loosely fused details to find their way in, like the white of a primer or the mottled texture of canvas. In some, Kononov removes the background all together rendering his subjects in swathes of flat colour, the effect pronouncing his figures in a haloed glow. In others, his protagonists fuse with their surroundings, the ripples of trousers blending with the limestone brickwork behind, or a dog camouflaged with the unkempt bed sheets it's lying on.

 

Anachronistic in their familiarity with canonical painters of the past, Kononov's compositions concoct an interlacing of many artistic movements into one, with an accuracy for painting skin to Édouard Manet and the muted dexterity for depicting clothing which recalls Berthe Morisot. Yet for all the reminiscences they conjure, each painting is an insight into companions who are dear to him and who populate his everyday life. They are painted from quick snapshots he takes on his camera before they're scaled up to canvas. He rarely loses sight of the instancy transmitted from the original photograph, their appearance in certain angles like pencil studies on cartridge paper. Across three paintings, Kononov affixes paper to the canvas with the help of a restorer, fusing the two surfaces seamlessly, the effect drawing to mind the tea-stained hue of the foxing on book pages as they age.

 

In 'Companions' none of his muses court the viewer; they are either posed with their eyes closed, or looking longingly into the eyes of a lover. The atmosphere each painting emits is blemished with apprehension, as compositions jolt through shifting states of tension, like film stills on pause. The abiding tone is yellow ochre, just like that which Lucien Freud adoringly used in his portraits of Caroline Blackwood. Freud wrote that 'the simplest human gestures tell stories', which Kononov vouches for too, while his subjects are contorted, or hugging, or playing, in positions portrayed earnestly and without contrivance.

 

 

- Ted Targett

Sergey Kononov (b. 1994, Odesa) lives and works between Odesa, UA and Paris, FR. In 2009, he began studying at the Art College of Odesa and in 2013, the Odesa State Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture. In 2015, Kononov began attending the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris from which he graduated in June of 2021.

 

In 2014, Kononov’s work was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Odessa and, in 2015, the Ukraine National Art Museum in Kiev. Since 2016, Kononov’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at Galerie Lazarew (Paris, FR). On the occasion of his sixth exhibition at Lazarew Paris in November 2023, a first monograph - gathering artworks from 2015 to 2023 - is co-published by MKF éditions and Galerie Lazarew, with the support of the CNAP. His debut US solo show “The Garden of Dreaming Youths”, took place at 15orient (New York, NY) in 2023. Recent group exhibitions include; “De leur temps”, FRAC Grand Large (Dunkirk, FR), “IV Odesa Biennale of Contemporary Art”, Museum of Modern Art (Odesa, UA), and “III Odesa Biennale of Contemporary Art”, Museum of Modern Art, (Odesa, UA).