"The best part of a writer's biography is not the record of his adventures, but the story of his style"
- Vladimir Nabokov in the Vogue interview, 1969 |
Ksenia Golubkov tells her story through the medium of her brush. Like Nabokov,  Ksenia has experienced the life of an emigre, preferring exile to life under an imposed system. Having grown up in Moscow, she left her homeland in 1981 to pursue a peripatetic artistic career which took her to France, Portugal, Holland and the USA. Like Nabokov, her vigorous originality overlays a deep and enthusiastic knowledge of those artists and writers who have contributed before her.
Having studied art since her childhood with her father, well known painter Philip Golubkov, she consolidated her education at the elite Moscow School of Applied Arts. Here she earned a MFA in interior, texture, and furniture design. It was there when she first had learned about Batik, and started to experiment with this ancient art technique - combining it with all the elements of classical European painting.
Her painting on silk expresses the processes of memory, fantasy, and identification. She mixes experience with immediate emotion. Ksenia is able to capture the fragility of life moment in her compositions with reference to nature, animals, people, and landscapes. Often Golubkov's images are specific references to the great old masters of art or symbols of a conversation between them and herself.
Something magical happens when Ksenia puts brush to painting; she picks a subject specific and particular time and place, and in depicting it some otherwordly process takes over and it shimmers into the universal. It is not surprising, therefore, that Ksenia's work has a broad appeal and she has been commissioned to do artwork for numerous fashion and design firms. These include Ralph Lauren, Victoria's Secret, Lane Bryant, and Disney.
Artistic expression on fabric has traditionally played a major role in the  fashion industry. Such famous 20th century artists as Matisse, Calder, Henry Moore, and Erte were commissioned to design silk scarves and other items for reprint. Ksenia Golubkov is interested in designing scarves as wearable art. Her one-of-a-kind scarves are marvels of draughtsmanship, eye-popping color, and improvisatory freedom. |
Golubkov's work can be found in many public spaces and private collections in Europe, Japan, Russia, and the U.S.
For more information, please contact the artist at (212) 927-3767 or online
|
|
|
