ANCHOR
A chronicler of contemporary American experience, Zolotov’s latest paintings are provocative and lyrical collisions of images, objects, forms and ideas. Born in Moscow (1982), Zolotov moved to New York in his childhood, and his work combines these shared inheritances in its condensation of the tumult of city life into stable, austere geometrical figures—equal parts Malevich and Rauschenberg.
The integration of found and trash objects allied to the appropriation of abstract, ideal forms challenges the artificial separation of art from life. Equal inspiration is here taken from the formal innovations of early modernism and the aesthetics of throwaway consumerism. The effect is a precarious balance, a seductive combination of the ideal and the mundane. Several of the assemblage paintings have the flavour of a palimpsest, with the sediment of urban life simultaneously obscured and preserved by the paint that glues it to the canvas. The ephemeral is thus conserved in paint, a neat twist on the painter’s conventional efforts to immortalise.
Works illustrated left to right:
Forming
2011-2012
House paint, grommet on canvas
91 x 152 cm (35 ¾ x 59 ¾ ins)
Cover
2011
Enamel, spray paint, house paint, cardboard, string, drawer handles on canvas
50 x 40 cm (19 ½ x 15 ¾ ins)
Glee
2011
Enamel, street sign, garbage bags and cardboard on canvas
137 x 137 cm (54 x 54 ins)
Black Flag (1976)
2011-2012
Enamel, house paint, flag on canvas
101 x 76 cm (39 ¾ x 30 ins)
Drift
2011-2012
Enamel, window parts, plastic bag, foam core on canvas
91 x 60 cm (35 ¾ x 23 ½ ins)
Red Square
2011
Enamel, cardboard and numerical magnets on canvas
137 x 137 cm (54 x 54 ins)
77%
2011-2012
Enamel, house paint, mixed media on canvas
101 x 76 cm (39 ¾ x 30 ins)
Anchor Painting
2011
House paint, cardboard and hardware on canvas
50 x 40 cm (20 x 16 ins)
Apogee
2011
Enamel, picture frame parts, nails and plastic bags on canvas
40 x 30.5 cm (16 x 12 ins)
