Table III

There is a lot going on in this painting; plates, cutlery, food and wandering people. Only the scale isn’t right. What do you think; is the food very big or the people very small?

This painting is part of the ‘the earth and the sky’ series, in which Alexander Bobkin paints different landscapes. The people in the landscapes are slowly becoming part of the background, captured while moving. You can’t tell the date from a landscape. In which year do you think this painting takes place? In the past, present or maybe the future?

Alexander was born in 1952 in Russia. In Novokoeznetsk, a small village in Siberia to be precise, which means that Alexander was born in the communist Soviet Union. It caused his career to be very different to most artists in the West.

For Alexander painting isn’t about depicting the appearance of an object. It is what lies behind it, that counts to him. He calls it the ‘internal likeness’. ‘What you paint is not important; the ‘mental’ reality behind it, is what bestows life on a work of art.’

After attending a famous Art Academy in Jaroslavl, a place not far from Moscow, Alexander returned to Siberia. He started working and living back in his birthplace. Every now and then he made trips into the vast wasteland of Siberia. There he met de ancient population and he became inspired by their myths and stories.

The villages he visited on his travels often had Shamans. In the rituals they performed Alexander discovered a ‘new reality’. This helped him to paint the ‘mental reality’ he was after.

Being an artist in the Soviet Union meant you weren’t free to create whatever you wanted. The main task was to create big, political works for the state. Besides that, an artist could work on his own projects, but only if it was deemed appropriate by the communist party. If the works were approved an artist could make a career. Firstly the works were shown in an exhibition in the local town. A work could then be chosen to represent the town in a provincial exhibition. After that came a regional level and the highest level was a national exhibition in Moscow.

Besides drawing and painting, Alexander specialised himself in etching while studying at the art academy. Etching means a picture is scratched into a thin layer of wax on a metal plate. After being treated with acid, the drawing is transmitted onto paper. Even though he had success with his etches, Alexander lost his joy in making them. He missed the spontaneity and freedom he experienced while drawing and painting.

Alexander was one of the artist that quickly gathered attention; from the town, to the province and the region before ending up in Moscow. By that time it was possible for foreign galleries to see the Soviet art and for the soviet artist to exhibit internationally. It wasn’t for long until Alexander also got an invitation for a show in London in 1990. He saw it as an opportunity to escape.

He didn’t get a permit for the UK, but it was possible to get a visa for the Netherlands. From here that also failed. So what was meant to be a stopover, turned into his home. Since 1991 Alexander has been living and working in Nijmegen.

Bobkin could start a second life as an artist in the Netherlands. ‘When I ended up in Holland, I decided to commit to drawing and painting, I made etches for long enough. I started my second life as an artist. I saw an opportunity; nobody knew who I was.’ If you could start a second life, what would you do differently?

In the animation movie Cloudy with a chance of meatballs an inventor creates a machine that allows him to transform water into food. What starts with a ‘simple’ cheeseburger rain, turns into a jelly palace and with pancakes that crush entire buildings. If you could choose; what food would you like to see as big as a skyscraper?

 

Still from Cloudy with a chance of meatballs, 2009