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Eduard AnikonovGear 2 Oil on Canvas 51” x 79”Gear 1 Oil on Canvas 55” x 59”In Eduard Anikonov’s paintings, man, machineand landscape meet in a world where industryand humanity become almost indistinguishable.Anikonov grew up in Magnitogorsk, a city that is acenter of Russia’s iron industry, and while factoriesand workers figure prominently in his images, theworks are far from being straightforwardly realisticdocuments. His paintings give that machine-drivenworld a highly personal spin, projecting a personalmythology onto the brutal landscapes of smokestacksand laborers that he depicts. “Industrial space isa territory that is full of meanings and history,” theartist says, adding that one of his main goals is toexpress a “new myth, new reality, new perception ofthe habitual industrial environment.”Anikonov creates that new perception by infusinghis paintings with a sense of mystery, turning bothindustrial machinery and human beings into slightlyblurred objects, placing them in highly abstractenvironments. A hulking machine will be placed nextto a flat field of color with writing scrawled onto it, orEduard in his Studioan image of a worker at rest will seem to sink intoits thickly painted background. In all of his images,there is a strong feeling of interplay between abstraction and representation. The viewer never loses touch with the world thatAnikonov’s paintings depict, but that world is transformed as well, contained with the artist’s unique vision.That vision extends to the distinctive palette that Anikonov employs. Often using just muted browns and grays, he knows exactlywhen to throw other shades into the mix to get the effects he wants. Glowing swirls of yellow will vividly make the idea of firecome alive against a dark background. Bright blue will unexpectedly appear to depict shadows, while reds communicate thefeeling of both sunlight and industrial heat to the viewer. That expressive use of color contributes to an artistic universe thatcontinually offers up visual surprises, giving us what the artist calls a “chance of real involvement, a new emotional experience.”www.anikonov.comwww.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Eduard_Anikonov.aspx62 ARTisSpectrum