BEYT - NAIMA - ART

"Alexey Mikhailov went in for painting quite late being a man of middle age with his own pained (not a perfect word, probably) world perception.

It is most likely that a late start helped him to overcome the almost obligatory period in the life of any young artist, which is normally filled with ambivalence, imitativeness, seek for one’s own language, instead defining his own territory and marking at once his own stylistic preferences. I would distinguish Mr. Mikhailov as a sort of reactionary romanticist, a kind of Chateaubriand of painting, with grotesque drifting to fantasy and retro, typical for such one. These special features are manifested not only in the subjects, choice of accessories (with the very character of his signature, I dare to mark), but also in coloring and in the obvious preference of bad weather to good one, night to day. If – God forbid! – there’s fine sunny day outside he would prefer to lock himself into a dark room and work on a still life or self-portrait delicately called “The Artist”. His evident love to the antique (in all its manifestations), to goods in general (Mr. Mikhailov is always dressed in good taste and elegancy) is displayed in the exquisite textures and lovingly careful processing of surface in his most recent works, which enrich them with additional dimension of a precious piece.

Mr. Mikhailov’s art does not correspond to the common ideas of good and evil, so important for an average observer who’s bound up in the fashions of today, but the audience who shares his own values (it exists, by all means) will find in him a master whose works do not leave alone and make you return again and again to his special, odd, sometimes scary, but always tempting world."

Sasha OKUN 

Translation: Andrey Mashinyn