MIKHAIL SHEMIAKIN

Mikhail Shemiakin (Shemyakin, Chemiakin) is a painter, graphic artist and sculptor, also a theater painter. In 1961 Mikhail Shemiakin was expelled from the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (St. Petersburg Academy of Arts) for «aesthetic deprivation» of classmates and failing to conform to Socialist Realism norms. He continued his studies independently, copying Old Masters in the Hermitage. He participated in underground exhibitions and exhibited his works in the West. In 1971, Mikhail Shemiakin was expelled from the USSR.  Until 1980, the artist lived in France, then in the USA. Since the early 1990s he started visiting Russia once again. In 2007 he returned to France where he currently resides. The range in which Mikhail Shemiakin works is very broad: from drawings to monumental sculpture, theater and cinema. Shemiakin`s sculptures adorn squares in Venice, San Francisco, St. Petersburg and Moscow. The artist brightly approved himself in the field of theater design. In the West, Mikhail Shemiakin started nearly from scratch, but managed to make a name for himself and go down in the history of the world art. Mikhail Shemiakin’s works are characterized by an appeal to the grotesque, phantasmagoria, masquerade, hallucinations; he inhabits his paintings with masks, puppets, phantoms, creating their often surreal images with the whimsical, elaborate curving sharp line, where some objects or pieces can come over to the others, interweaving with them. Mikhail Shemiakin is close to carnival culture, colour, paint, mix of mystery games, laughter and absolute seriousness, his element is mystery. Shemiakin is an honorary doctor of a number of higher educational institutions in Russia and abroad: Honorary Doctor of the University of San Francisco, Honorary Doctor of the European Academy of Arts (Paris), Honorary Doctor of Cedar Crest College (Allentown, USA), member of the New York Academy of Sciences. Recipient of the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of art. Recipient of the Order of the Knight of Arts and Letters of the French Ministry of Culture, etc. Shemiakin's paintings are exhibited at museums throughout the world - the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection, Rutgers University (New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA), the Museum of Art (Sao Paulo, Brazil), the Kolodzie Art Foundation (Highland Park, New Jersey, USA), etc.