Art pervades my whole life, no matter how trite it sounds. I always do something for art, at least in my thoughts. I think a lot and often react as an artist to the most mundane things. It’s not possible to do art as a job. I constantly look at life as something that can be transformed into art.
Painting, Vladimir Potapov believes, speaks through its own visuality – which is why he develops his own pictorial language for every series of works
Take us to the beginning of your story. How did your tryst with art begin?
I always painted, but it was a hobby. I never wanted to become an artist and never imitated anyone. And already being in the third year at the Faculty of Economics of Volgograd State University, I decided to go to courses where I could improve my painting and drawing skills. Courses were held at the Institute of Arts.
When the courses ended, I decided to take the entrance examinations to the art institute. It all started with that. I was 20 years old. I was kicked out of the economics faculty, but at the last moment I organised a personal exhibition at the department, after which I was allowed to stay on to study. All the teachers were surprised that I was getting a second education in art. After eight years, I moved to Moscow from Volgograd, where I studied at several schools of contemporary art. I began to study the theory and history of art. I began to insist on painting and, at some point, turned into a painter. Now, I teach painting at the Tretyakov Gallery and the School of Free Workshops at the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts.
Tell us about the evolution of your practice over the years.
First of all, evolution consisted in the fact that my academic knowledge has changed a lot since I arrived in Moscow. It was a modernisation of my creative method and the idea of painting. Later, I began to experiment a lot and the first series of works were ‘spatial paintings’, where I used plexiglass, thus creating a three-dimensional image. This is an interesting method that pointed out to me that pictorial language is the main thing in painting, not the plot or history. After that I continued to work with non-standard materials. This work was like creating new letters in the alphabet of painting.
What were your biggest lessons and hurdles along the way? Any memorable moment?
The most memorable moment is to stop supplementing your painting with various props in the form of comments and concepts. Painting speaks by itself, with its own visuality.
What inspires you? Take us through your process and continuous frameworks of reference.
I am inspired by different things: movies, music, books, walks, the subway and they all work in about the same way. I’m immersed in some strange, very sensitive state. So I feel and understand more deeply and intensely.
What is the primary role of an artist? How do you describe yourself in the context of challenging people’s perspectives via your work and art?
The role of the artist is to fix his time and express the essence. Art is another tool for understanding the world, the same as scientific knowledge. My creative practices fix our time and I do it in different ways. For each series of works, I develop my own unique pictorial language. Thus, now I have five picturesque series that differ from each other, but also reflect my painting method – not to repeat the painting style found earlier, as the artists of modernism did.
How do you balance art and life?
Art pervades my whole life, no matter how trite it sounds. I always do something for art, at least in my thoughts. I think a lot and often react as an artist to the most mundane things. It’s not possible to do art as a job. I constantly look at life as something that can be transformed into art.
How do you deal with the conceptual difficulty and uncertainty of creating work?
I have a method. For each of my new series of works I develop a new pictorial language. I think this is important. To make different thematic series and use the same pictorial language is boring and mechanical. The theme of the new series and the pictorial language revealing it is a complex combination, where these two parameters penetrate into each other and reveal more deeply and expressively. This is a pretty conceptual approach, but I like it. Every time I start from scratch – this is a great excitement and drive!
How does your audience interact and react to the work?
For me, this is not an audience, but an environment that reminds me of the smooth surface of a lake. Each of my artistic work is a stone that I throw into this lake. Circles diverge from the stone on the surface, and the more interesting and stronger my work, the farther the circles diverge on the surface. I don’t like everything I see in this world, so sometimes I want to create a storm with my work.
What are you looking for when you look at other artists’ work? Who are your maestros?
I am very wary of those who are dream like. On the one hand, it’s nice to see good paintings, but on the other I don’t want to be influenced. At the student stage you can afford to imitate, but not now. Now, rather, my career path reminds me of a mine deep in the mountain. I am completely alone and I feel good about it.
You have spent time amongst artists in flow. What have you observed?
I watched many stories that disappointed me. Often I have to observe how artists average up in their desire to be noticed. Or how artists came to Moscow. And then after four-five years they leave for their hometown. There are those who do not leave, but they don’t even imagine anything. They have no prospects. Sorry, but this is life. In addition, many career ambitions are not supported by talent and education. But this goes quickly.
What is that one thing you wished people would ask you but never do?
I have a fairly large audience. Sometimes people see in my work what I never thought of. This is interesting, it is always unexpected. I also like to be at my exhibition and listen to the conversations of spectators who do not know that I am the artist. Sometimes I start talking to them as a spectator. We start discussing works and think about what the artist wanted to say. That is always funny.
How does your interaction with a curator, gallery or client evolve from the initial interface to the working-involvement-relationship? How do you feel about commissions?
All these characters are participants in the art process and I have to build relationships with all of them. This is part of the work that is not at all creative. This is management and networking. These skills allow your art to end up in orbits that you could have never been in unless you made those associations. In a way, this is fuel for your art machine. Relations are built within the framework of market relations, so often you have to pay for the work of these agents from the art world and this is normal.
What are you working on now? What’s coming next season?
Till November 28 I have an exhibition at Gallery Pop/Off /Art in Moscow. At first I wanted to relax, because I spent a lot of energy on the exhibition, but then I realized that I needed to work. The exhibition is a success. I am satisfied. I plan to start a new series of works, something completely new.
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