Early years Oleg Khvostov was born in
Leningrad in 1972 and spent his early years on Narodnaya street, in Vesely Poselok district. His school-time passion for doodling and drawing caricatures of his classmates and teachers later on grew into keen interest in painting when one of his classmates, fascinated with the
hippie culture, introduced Oleg to
Nicholas Roerich's art. Thereafter Khvostov began to attend an
educational studio on Ligovsky prospect and got a more thorough understanding of
classical Russian art and works of
Ilya Repin,
Ivan Shishkin,
Ivan Kramskoi. After graduating from school Khvostov served in the
Northern Fleet (in Soviet times known as Red Banner Northern Fleet.) He was lucky enough to serve in Fleet's headquarters in
Severomorsk,
Murmansk Oblast, where administration paid special attention to the navy men's cultural entertainment. It was in the fleet's fine arts studio where he saw works of
Pablo Picasso,
Henri Matisse,
Aleksander Rodchenko and found out about modernism and
Russian avant-garde for the first time. On return from the service in 1993 Oleg went on attending a fine arts studio in Saint Petersburg and pre-entry course of the Faculty of Architecture in the
Saint Petersburg Repin Academy of Arts, but decided to choose real-life experience over getting a degree in Arts.
Early career, 1993 — 1997 In the early 1990s Khvostov saw the artists at
Ostrovsky square as the new image of artistic freedom. He moved to a squat on Konstantina Zaslonova street and it became his first studio. Among distinguishing features of Khvostov early works were processing of themes and artistic devices in consecutive stages and experiments with materials. For the
Color schemes series he had been painting different
geometric objects’ planes by a particular algorithm for 1.5 year in order to master his techniques. Oleg started teaching himself how to draw self-portraits and used to finish several in a single day. In the following years this series has gradually risen to several thousands of paintings. Artistic revision of the famous paintings in Khvostov's own technique was another part of self-education. In 1997 Oleg showed the photos of his works to the
Boray gallery curators in Saint Petersburg and they featured them in the gallery's summer exhibition. His paintings draw attention of the local celebrities – Vladimir Kozin and Vadim Flyagin from the artistic group
The New Stupid. The fame of "The New Stupid" gave the artist more prominence in the art community. Through "the New Stupid" Khvostov got acquainted with fine art experts Gleb Ershov and Andrei Klyukanov who at that moment worked in
Navicula Artis gallery. In 1999 they organized his first
solo exhibition "Self-portraits — 200+1", which consisted of only a part of the artist's series. In 2000 Khvostov shifted to the large format and started to use emulsion paint and paper.
The New Stupid society leader, Vadim Flyagin, became his first model. Then there was a comic series "Curators’ portraits" representing notable art critics of Saint Petersburg and galleries’ staff. These works led to Khvorostov getting an order to paint a multi-figured portrait for the anniversary of the "Leningrad Art Critics Club", founded by Ivan Chechot. For this portrait the artist took as a basis the renowned painting
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by
Rembrandt. He illustrated a figurative dead body as a "body of art" prosected by Chechot and his students. In 2001 Khvostov and "The New Stupid" parted ways. Oleg left the group in the rank of the ‘honorary member’ and focused on painting. "Memorial of Leaders" was highly valued within the art community. First of all, Khvostov was awarded with the honorary prize "Propylaeum" by the "New art world" magazine and the "Artist of the year 2000" title. Second, at the exhibition in the Museum of Non-conformist Art the "Memorial" attracted attention of the
Moscow art dealer Marat Guelman, who devised to present a special project of Saint Petersburg artists at the annual "Art Moscow"
fair. In May, 2001 Khvostov finished working on the "New Leniniana" series in which he illustrated the revolutionary leader as a character of the folk art. In his absurd Leniniana the artist played with the scenes of
Isaak Brodsky,
Arkady Rylov and
Kukryniksy by making
Napoleon Bonaparte, Stalin, Hitler, robotic
Venus de Milo, Rome imperor
Nero,
Titanic and himself its main characters. The "New Leniniana" was presented for the first time at the exhibition organized by "Navicula Artis" gallery and Pushkinskaya 10 Art Centre in the Razliv Lenin Museum. In 2003 Khvostov won a grant from the Pro Arte Foundation for Culture and Arts to create an exhibition project in
The State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg. His works became a part of the "Passport" display that was a part of the "Shtuchki" exhibition project. It was organized by the fund and the museum upon an initiative of the historic Lev Lurie and with support of the
Ford Foundation. Its aim was to introduce citizens to daily necessities of the past, provided by different Saint Petersburg museums, by locating them in the same display area along with
contemporary art objects. At the March exhibition three official documents from different eras were presented: 1838 residence permit for living in Saint Petersburg, citizeness Sokolova's passport issued in 1939, and a passport from 1904. For this "Passport" project Olge Khvostov painted 3 portraits of their owners based on the descriptions given. Since January 2000 to January 2001 he continued working on the series of his self-portraits for the new exhibition, organized by Aleksander Florensky in the
Mitki Art Centre. Though it was named "1000 self-portraits", the artist presented an additional painting to Dmitry Shagin to include it in the gallery's collection. In 2005 some of the Khvastov's self-portraits were included in the "Human portrait" display, presented by the
National Centre for Contemporary Arts within the
1st Moscow Biennnale of Contemporary Art special program. Apart from that, in 2001 Oleg Khvostov took part in Biennale of Contemporary Art in
Tirana, organized by
Giancarlo Politi, the ‘
Flash Art’ magazine publisher, and
art critic Helena Kontova. During his collaboration with the Guelman Gallery Khvostov took part in the "Piterskiye" project at the "Art Moscow" fair in 2005 and got a grant from the Marat Guelman Contemporary Art Funding Agency. In a year spent in his Moscow studio the artist completed two projects: a grand-scale model of the
Moscow Kremlin made of carton boxes and an artistic revision of the "
Venus of Urbino" by
Tiziano, also painted on the carton boxes and potentially divided into blocks. However, the exhibition in Marat Guelman's Gallery wasn't held and in 2006 Oleg came back to Saint Petersburg. In January, 2007 the "Venus" by Khvostov became a part of the "Thaw" exhibition in the
State Russian Museum Marble Palace. The exhibition dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the Marat Guelman Gallery was a continuation of the permanent exposition of 70 paintings by contemporary Russian artists that Guelman donated to the museum in 2001.
Collaboration with Gridchinhall, 2009 – 2012 Three year later Khvostov accepted the invitation of the art dealer and art collector Sergey Gridchin and moved to Moscow again. He resided in the
Gridchinhall art residence and for almost a year worked on a new art project. In December, 2010 Oleg presented his exhibition called "Absolute painting" that included both Kremlin and Venus, created during his work with Guelman, along with some new works. As the artist was inspired by the landscapes that surrounded the residence area rural scenery became the central theme of the exhibition. It also included around 40 artistic interpretations of classical paintings from
Leonardo da Vinci and Tiziano Vecellio to
Julien Dupré,
Orest Kiprensky and
Zinaida Serebryakova. By that time Khvostov's individual artistic style as a naïve artist had fully developed. Moreover, during this time period an image of a cow enters the artist's visual language as he saw them close for the first time while swimming in the ponds near the residence. During the lawsuit against punk-rock band
Pussy Riot in 2012 Khvostov, along with other people of art and culture, spoke in support of its members. He signed an open letter in support of the Pussy Riot members and against government imposing certain perceptions of modern art and participated in the travelling exhibition ‘Party Riot Bus’. He painted a portrait of
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova on cardboard that was later included in multipage album ‘Art at the barricades’ presented at the
Moscow Contemporary Art Center Winzavod in August, 2012.
Saint Petersburg, 2012 – 2015 On return from Gridchinhall Khvostov rented a studio on the territory of an ex-factory "Red triangle" and started working on his new series of landscapes. On February, 14 in 2013 he presented his new works in the "Lust" series at the exhibition in the AL Gallery. After a year Khvostov finally managed to organize an exhibition at Marat Guelman's: the same series of landscapes but with the different idea was exhibited in the "Cultural Alliance" gallery in the Art Center Winzavod under an ironic name "Lavandos", an allusion to Provance lavender fields and Russian criminal
argot In October, 2013 Khvostov's paintings were presented at SWAB Barcelona, International contemporary art fair, in November – became a part of the AL Gallery's stand at the art fair Contemporary Istanbul 2013. In February, 2014 his "New Leniniana" series was repeatedly exhibited in Razliv for the jubilee exhibition "90", commemorated to Vladimir Lenin's memorial day. On the exhibition closing day the artist handed all eight works of the series to the Razliv Lenin Museum. The next Khvostov's exhibition is planned in Gridchinhall for December, 2015 and January, 2016. It is going to include his latest works, painted in 2014-2015х. == Artistic style ==