The pop/off/art gallery presents "From Stroke to Painting," a solo exhibition by Nikolai Kasatkin (1932–2019), a recognized classic of contemporary Russian art who redefined the artistic space of the painting and developed his own movement — "conceptual landscape." This is the artist's fifth solo exhibition at the gallery.

The project is conceived within the framework of the gallery's program aimed at uncovering new facets of the art of artists from the "heritage" section. Nikolai Ivanovich Kasatkin gained recognition from both the general public and the professional community as a master of painting, which represents the central thread of his art. However, his training at the graphic arts faculty served as a starting point for his interest in mastering complex techniques and experimenting with materials, which significantly expanded his artistic range.

The exhibition brings together over thirty works from the 1960s–2000s, executed on paper and cardboard, many of which are on display for the first time. Viewers will be presented with a body of works and a wide range of diverse techniques that Nikolai Kasatkin mastered, from linocut to pastel. At the same time, the artist’s focus remained on the artistic space of the painting and the structure of the landscape. In these small-format works, one can trace the recognizable motifs and compositional solutions characteristic of Kasatkin’s paintings.

A revelation for the public will be the series of abstract monotypes from the 1970s–1990s, in which Nikolai Kasatkin was drawn to the artistic imagery of chance. Some monotype sheets become a kind of homage to works by Mikhail Vrubel and Kasatkin’s contemporary, Petr Belenok. By observing the expression of spontaneously generated blots and lines, viewers can follow the associative link between abstraction and figurative art, as presented by the curator.

Curator: Anastasia Kotelnikova

Nikolai Kasatkin was born in 1932 in the village of Zhukovo, Smolensk region. From 1933, he lived in Moscow; however, starting in 1983, he spent every summer in the Smolensk region, in the village of Vorontsovo. In 1959, he graduated from the Moscow State Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov, and from 1973 he was a member of the Moscow Union of Artists. Kasatkin participated in numerous solo and group projects. The artist's works are held in the collections of the Sepherot Foundation (Liechtenstein), the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum (USA), the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow), the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), the Sfera Contemporary Art Support Foundation (Moscow), as well as in several regional Russian museum collections and private holdings. Kasatkin's solo exhibitions took place at the State Tretyakov Gallery (2015), the Museum Center "Ploshchad Mira" (2018), the PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art (2019–2018 — note: likely a typo in the original, should be 2018–2019 or 2019), and the NCCA Arsenal (2019–2020). The artist died on October 26, 2019, in Moscow.