Refat MAMUTOV.
PAINTING, ARTISTIC OBJECTS
December 5, 2001 - January 4, 2002

Press Release

Contemporary art gallery "OkNo" supporting by Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation, Russia) presents the exhibition "REFAT MAMUTOV. PAINTING, ARTISTIC OBJECTS" (December 5, 2001 - January 4, 2002).

The painted works of Refat Mamutov are the artist's generalizations made on the visible forms of reality.

Regarding nature, he is attracted towards the whole, the essential, not towards the part and the particular, although the motifs of his pictures hardly ever hint at the natural world. He has a singular aptitude for finding an exact artistic analogy in his works to everything that comes into his view. These are a kind of plastic formulae, which are expressed by means of the unrestrained and powerful language of painting and need neither removing nor adding anything.

If Refat Mamutov's paintings are a result of an emotional generalization of great significance, his objets d'art are turned into the mental sphere of intellectual reflection. In his assemblages, just like in his paintings, the artist follows his bent for the minimum, being inclined to cut off everything that may be regarded as the particular. The abstract forms influence the observer by their material reality, the difference in texture alone giving rise to a wide series of associations.

The inclination to the simple manner of plastic expression, the artist's attraction towards lapidary phrasing and speaking in meaningful images free from accidentals and from anything of secondary importance, are the characteristic features of Refat Mamutov's creation.

Opening day -- December 5 at 18.00

Working time: 12.00-19.00 every day.
Admission free.
The gallery address: prospekt Pobedy, 160 (Robin-Bobin).
OkNo Gallery in Internet: http://www.oknogallery.ru/
Director of project -- Dmitry Latukhin
Curator of gallery -- Svetlana Shlyapnikova