Over imaginable phenomenon of Ievgen Petrov, the watercolorist.
Honestly, what a pity that this article of mine can’t be over with just these three pictures already posted here. As for me, that’s more than enough to prove the self-sufficiency of Ievgen Petrov watercolor’s giftedness. If not, then I’ll get to explain a little further on. Ievgen Petrov really is a phenomenal author. One of those, in the living existence of whom it’s hard to believe. When he describes his approach as working in “realism plus postmodernism,” he, as habitually established among artists, he is exposing just half of the truth. The secret of his artistic success — is an unmatched, truly unparalleled masterpiece of watercolor techniques combined together with postmodernist plots. After the international recognition of the artist, I guess that only the Ukrainian local audience still a little underestimating the level of his talent.
The topic range is very important for Ievgen Petrov, due to the way of working on projects. Their diapason is wide, from the pop culture critique to the discussion of nude or south Ukrainian free vacation; nevertheless, one thing is uncontested — he depicts only what annoys him or irritates him massively. From one project to another — the whole range of topics varies profoundly, from aggression to the informed observation of people, from direct action stories to indirect cues. Occasionally, visiting foreign art fairs of contemporary art numerous connoisseurs can’t believe that his watercolors are of labor manual craftwork production, not just print. For that, the artist is able to win over each and every contemporary art market and situation, what is required is to have a concept of high fine art achievement, not to be overwhelmed by multiple art simulations or media by-products, like “conceptual second hand” artworks. We do emphasize that it’s not just the about dry fact that it’s hard to find a watercolorist for two-meter watercolor or a watercolorist who can organically and anatomically decide a group of people, figures, — nowadays in the world are no watercolorists of his level! Despite perhaps the Japanese, this is needed to be proven, perhaps even they won’t reach the level of Ievgen Petrov.
Ievgen Petrov works in both techniques of wet and dry watercoloring, and buying paper, especially from France. Working independently, without even a curator, he is a self-reliable artist. Each of his artworks — is like a tiny movie. His pictures were published on frontispieces and initial pages of newspapers and magazines. His art pieces were bought by other artists from Lithuania, the United States, and Switzerland — that’s a very rare phenomenon. Ievgen Petrov is one of the most responsible and sharply politically critical artists. With that said, he still not sending textual manifestos and not hiding in a box, that is, he just works on his projects. There’s an impression that the ideas of Ievgen Petrov are endless and absolutely actual.
The list of the countries of his oeuvre connoisseurs reached already a few dozen of names, therefore the Latvian curator Mr. Maris Vitols faced some difficulties to host the exhibition project “Dogs of Petrov,” because the majority of the watercolors already were acquired by various private art collectors. In a vast number of contemporary art fairs Ievgen Petrov had already participated, and whenever he went, he had a wow effect, and the art fairs media teams had nothing else to show except him! So what’s the true reason why the such incredible level of art achievements are still not detected by the local Ukrainian audience? We lack professional and independent art criticism, a transparent developed, and stable art market, and progressive art education as well. To say the big thing last, all issues can be reduced to overcoming outcomes of total post-Soviet corruption in all fields of human activity and professional expertise, same with art criticism, due to the famous fact that art critics have to independently and professionally evaluate breakthroughs or under achievements of this or that artistic movement, separate work or exhibition project.
Art critics about Ievgen Petrov: Polish “Gazeta Wyborcza,” together with art magazines — front page of Lithuanian “Literatura ir Menas” and editor’s article from French “Artension” (Lyon).
