A one-man exhibition of the Moscow’s graphic artist Matvey Bronislavovich Shabaev was opened in the Museum of Dionisy’s Frescoes on March 1.
Matvey Shabaev is a graphic artist of Moscow, he teaches in the Surikov State Academic Art Institute, takes up icon-painting and monumental painting. His one-man exhibition in the Museum of Dionisy’s Frescoes presents a series of works which haven’t been displayed all together before. These small crayoned landscapes created by the artist during the period from 1995 to 1999 form a certain narration, a kind of a diary, written in the simple, clear and harmonious language. The motif of these landscapes is the outskirts of Ferapontovo, the Tsypina Mountain with its slopes, woodland and expanses. The house of the artist’s parents surrounded with a garden is located near the top of the mountain, in a small village.
These chamber works have an effect of large pictures thanks to a particular point of view (to be more exact, an angle) of the artist on the surrounding landscape. The foreground of the drawings is executed in a different way: sometimes it is active and detailed, sometimes generalized and serves as a kind of the basis-stage for the following grounds. Multi-layer space is used as wings showing sometimes decorative, sometimes realistic characteristics.
One of the most expressional drawings of this period is “The House of Geleskul” (1998). A huge building tumbling into ruins with nailed up windows and an overgrown palisade is depicted in it. Famous poet and translator A.M. Geleskul lived in the Mountains for a long time in the 1970s.
And Matvey Shabaev still comes to Odenievo (Mountains). Moreover, he is constructing his own house there. Hopefully, this series of drawings-pictures will be continued, as you don’t need large sheets to express the most significant.
