Yuri Palkov
Much more fascinating are his fantastic paintings in an original style that combines surrealism, grotesque, irony and humor. In front of them one wants to stand for a long time and draw strength for life. He likes to express a large number of feelings and emotions with meager means. He can even draw a landscape in black and white, but there will still be “life”: the sun, movement, and even colors – a gray pencil is quite possible to convey the variety of colors.
Yuri commented on his surrealism as follows: “Its origins are in our reality, moreover: whatever I come up with, there is much more absurdity in life”.
And here is the last example. In the summer he visited Israel: he was invited to write a series of works on Jerusalem. They organized an amazing tour of the city with a guide. On June 13 he was preparing to return to Kishinev, but the war between Israel and Iran began, and the flight was canceled. He ended up in the north of the country, where he integrated into a community of Israelis who were constantly living in the rhythm of the fighting. And ran with them to the bomb shelter.
“I didn’t have panic,” he admits. – Something turns on inside and you become collected. But I constantly felt the unnaturalness, the unnaturalness of what was happening: there was beauty around, butterflies were flying, and then the siren and rockets came on….. There is a distortion of reality.
Yuri also made sketches from the bomb shelter – he always has a small album with pencils with him. I still have many of them in front of my eyes…..
That trip was surely included in his rich bank of life impressions. Yuri unites them in one word – vision, and considers it the main tool of the artist. Observance is, in fact, “visual reading”. The more you watch and analyze quality visual content, the better your “visual taste” is and the easier it is for you to create something of your own.
Next to this is another quality – observation, which allows the artist to understand and convey complex emotions, which makes his work deeper and more resonant for the viewer.
Yuri Palkov studied a lot and for a long time. Actually, self-education never ends. Already in three and a half years – in the studio, then – in the School of Arts named after V. Polyakov. Then – A. Shchusev Children’s Art School, A. Plemadyale Art College, I. Creanga State Pedagogical University. And – the graphic faculty of the Academy of Music, Theater and Fine Arts. “Gradually it came to me that if you want to learn something, you have to do it yourself. The good thing was freedom. And how you dispose of it depended only on you.”
After receiving a diploma from the Academy, Yuri felt that something was really missing. Not knowledge, but something else. Once he was invited to paint the walls in the interior of a house in Moscow. And Yuri stayed there for three years. Visited museums, absorbed the work of the greats. “And, what is interesting: many artists whose paintings I saw in books since childhood, when I met them in person, for me faded – shares impressions interlocutor. – And others, on the contrary, opened in a new way. Visiting museums with the works of great masters is really the best school”.
It was not easy in Moscow. Once he even had to live in a cellar on the edge of the forest: they let him in to guard the building materials in an unfinished house. And – constantly drawing, this is his usual state. He collected works for a whole exhibition. But one day, because of the flood, the basement flooded, and the paintings died. Yuri felt that life taught him a lesson: “It was then that I realized that you do not need to save anything, to shake over every stroke, even if it is very successful. The most important thing is creativity.
Yuri Palkov is always in search, works in different fields: graphics, sculpture, painting, combines different types of art. Not so long ago he held a performance at Mediacor together with a German dancer: his drawings came to life on a huge screen and she danced to them. It was an interesting experience, says the artist. He paints with wine, coffee…
He likes graphics for its simplicity. He believes that paper and pencil are enough to express his thoughts.
In each work Yuri puts subtext, hidden meaning, “speaks” riddles. “And you can make such riddles for yourself that five years later you look at the picture and wonder: “Did I do it?”.
The birth of his images happens all the time. It can happen on the street, or inspired by a book, and so on….. “You splash paint or coffee on a canvas, on a sheet of paper, and something manifests there, you start writing. It all melts in your head, you want to work, but you realize that you just can’t physically realize it all. But that’s my way, and I can’t do it without it. And I don’t want to.
