Ivan
Yuryevich Sotnikov

(born 1961, Leningrad). Attended evening art school №1 on the Fontanka. Worked as tiskalnika in the printing, janitor, fireman, watchman of the Church in Vyritsa. In 1996, he was ordained to the priesthood. Included in TEII and the group "New artists", and later exhibited with the group "Mitka".

The artist admitted that he was influenced by the work of Arefieva mainly V. Shagin, and what is impressive exhibition of Larionov. From the beginning his manner was loose, sketchy, over time, becoming more relaxed and simplified. His painting of the late 1970s - early 1980s, Florensky says, "brash, beautiful color, taste good." It is characterized by special ease, harmony, freshness, spontaneity. In the first half of the 1980s clearly focused on the primitivism. Your natural uninhibited, daring and playful attitude to art was one of those who determined the direction of neo-primitivism, who created the style of "new wild". In 1982 he, along with T. Novikov, signed the "Zero-object" - random rectangular hole in the stand. In the second half of the 1980s, replaces the image with signs, introduces the motifs of mass culture. In the painting appears "avtorskiy sign," a constant motif: fir tree with its correct tier, with repetitions of a single rhythmic formula. M. Trofimenkov saw it as "a symbol of the harsh natural in unnatural combination with tearful sentimentality".