About artist
Nicolay Kamyshnikov
Sculptor, painter, member of Russian artists union
Nicolay Kamyshnikov graduated from Saratov School of Art in 1988. He is member of the Russian artists union since 1998. Nicolay leaves and works in Saratov.
He is a participant of various regional, Russian-wide and international exhibitions. Works of N. Kamyshnikov located in collections of Radishev Art Museum in Saratov, museums of Khvalynsk, Balokovo, in private collections in Russia, Germany, Italy, USA.
Nicolay Kamyshnikov works can be describe as traditional European plastic arts of XX century.
Nicolay's uniqueness is the combination of modern plastics with the traditional sculptural material - wood. This combination brings a new artistic reality. When a tree is alive it is beautiful , but a wooden block loses most of its wildlife features, so sculptor has to bring it alive again.
Dryad, 1994
Nicolay Kamyshnikov describes his sculptures as "abstract-organic", giving accent to correlation between the natural forms and forms that are born from the artist's imagination.
In the basics of form making of his sculptures lies the same law of nature as for the growing plants. The world is one. Human's body, body of a tree and a stone.
One of the oldest sculptures symbolically named "Dryad". As well as spirits of trees that lives and dies with trees, artist's work is inseparable from the tree that it is created from.
Nicolay Kamyshnikov likes and feels the wood. As a material for sculpture - wood can reveal different qualities. For Nicolay Kamyshnikov hardness of tree is valuable, so he prefers solid wood species and works like it is a stone. It is important for the artist to feel resistance of the material. At the same time the hard work is hidden from viewers. The artist doesn't leave any marks of it. An accurate manufacturing of surface shows the natural beauty of wood structure, however when sculpture has a finalised view - it leaves on with its own life.
Nicolay Kamyshnikov doesn't start with theme or story, but he starts with a plastic idea of the art. Names for sculptures come up later and show the association. Sculpture "speaks" language of volumes, mass movement, dynamic contrasts and statics. A rough and angular form reveals feel of a conflict, hidden aggression, drama. In the flowing smooth shape of other works feels meditative peace.
Nicolay Kamyshnikov creates a classic motive for a sculpture - single standing statue. Stages of work with a sculpture are also traditional. Outer space enters inside the sculpture connecting it with the surroundings. The complex correlations and flowing of shapes appears, the outside world helps to form the sculptural volume.
Although works of Nicolay Kamyshnikov are referred to indoor sculpture, they imaged in a natural environment - they should not be surrounded with walls, but with Air, Earth, Water - the eternal entities. Idea of animation of all thing on Earth reflects in his arts.
Often a human figure becomes a motive for a sculpture, it is extremely generalised and become a symbol. The idea behind this generalisation is to move beyond the unambiguity. The shape can be guessed in the silhouette, proportions. The emphasis for associativity makes the process of visual perception more active. A real figure is bound to a certain time period in its specificity, while an ancient archetype stands still in time.
One of the important themes for an artist is an image of female figure.
Queen "Chrono", 2001
Urba, 1997
It is more like a female archetype that is not bound to time and exists in the eternity, dominating the time. "Queens Chrono" is an example for it.
Sculptures "Urba" and "Geoma" describes problems of modern civilization. Machines become part of modern life, they bring under control not only housekeeping but also human consciousness, they make it simpler, more mechanic and rational. Cold simplified geometricity of these sculptures comes from here.
Special sculptor's creativity line can be represented by "Interflow", "Compressed energy", "Touch". In the basics of form making lies the organic structures, such as bones, plants. But at the same time sculptures are synthetic and natural forms are combined with symbolic ones.
Principle of development of natural form is generalised to universal principle of development, movement of material.
Significance of forms makes Nicolay Kamyshnikov's sculpture emphatically decorative. But decorativeness should not be considered as meaningless or just an embellishment, its purpose is to expand an idea behind it. Modern sculpture have this in common with plastic traditions of ancient, preclassic civilizations.
Ancient arts, even if they lost their names, don't stop to amaze our imagination with its almost mystique power.
While developing modern trends, sculpture gets back to the roots - when there was no opposition to Art and Nature. “Art is a continuous activity with no separation between past and present.”- Henry Moore said.
Pictorial art by Nicolay Kamyshnikov can be named "intuitive abstraction".
From complex mix of colors and lines some kind of association is born, that allows us to create a story behind it.
Interflow, 2017
Compressed energy, 2002
Touch, 2018
Geoma, 2008
Main exhibitions
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«Art-Volga» Düsseldorf, FRG 1992.
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«Art-Volga» Tsdkh, Moscow 1992.
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Young artists exhibition in Radishev Museum, Saratov 1992.
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«Wide Volga» Nizhny Novgorod 1995.
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Russian-wide art exhibition Tsdkh, Moscow 1999.
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«Wide Volga» Nizhny Novgorod 2003 .
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Russian-wide sculpture exhibition «Sculpture – 2006» Lipetsk 2006.
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Multi-region art exhibition «Unity» Nizhny Novgorod 2007.
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Russian-wide art exhibition«Russia ХI» Moscow, 2009.
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Exhibition «Wooden sculpture» in sculpture art-gallery St. Petersburg, 2011.
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Personal exhibition «Steps» in K.A. Fedin Museum Saratov, 2011.
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Russian-wide art exhibition «Russia - My motherland» Saransk, 2012.
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Russian-wide art exhibition «Wide Volga» Kazan, 2013.
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Personal exhibition in Mariinsky theatre St. Petersburg, 2015.
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«SHR – SARATOV.RU» in art museum Tolyatti, 2016.
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Personal exhibition «Opposite movement» in Radishev Museum, Saratov 2016.
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Personal exhibition in gallery «Times» Saratov, 2017.
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Personal exhibition in Forte Club Saratov, 2018 .
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Art exhibition in Volga Region «Wide Volga ХII» Nizhny Novgorod, 2018.
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Anniversary exhibition Saratov branch of Russian Artists Union «Union of variety» 2018.
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Russian-wide art exhibition «Sculpture small form and tapestry» Samara 2019.