Recent sketches

A piece of street with a sidewalk and a wall of a house where an unknown life hides behind a window. A bright spot, sandwiched by two dynamic dark masses of passers-by, who pass from darkness to darkness. They are impersonal and almost hostile to each other, just as the environment is hostile – a gloomy autumn day, clogged asphalt, peeling plaster.

But this is only a first impression. In all the works of Andrei Surnov there is a second meaning. If we look for a long time, we will see the frightening beauty of glass with highlights behind the bars, and the garbage will seem almost stars on black asphalt, like in an inverted sky, and passers-by are just tired people who go home from work.

The artist uses here a technique characteristic of many of the works of his beloved Andrew Wyeth. He follows the laws of human vision. The window is carefully drawn, we see the space behind the bars, glare, shadows, but the rest of the canvas is painted in rough, broad masses to emphasize their dynamism, their irresistible movement.