Georgy Ostretsov was born in 1967. A graduate of the Bolshoi Theater Art School. He entered the Detsky Sad (Kindergarten) group of avant-garde artists in 1984 along with Georgy Litichevsky, Andrei Roiter, German Vinogradov, and Nikolai Filatov. In 1985, Ostretsov joined the New Artists group in Leningrad. In 1988 Georgy went to Paris where he worked in the fashion industry in collaboration with fashion designers Jean-Paul Gaultier and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac. After his return to Russia, he was selected for participation in the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009). His solo exhibition I’ve been abducted hundreds of times! premiered at Palazzo Nani Bernardo in Venice in 2017. Ostretsov’s artworks have been included in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), the Pompidou Centre (Paris), State Museum Exhibition Center ROSIZO/National Center for Contemporary Art, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Saatchi Gallery (London), as well as private collections of Roman Abramovich, Simon de Pury, the Zabludowicz Collection, and many others. Ostretsov became the first Russian painter whose works were exhibited in British collector’s Charles Saatchi’s gallery.
Georgy Ostretsov created the Home Guardian diptych for the cover of BoscoMagazine. His passion for Italian Renaissance motivated the painter to create a special art technique that he used for the cover.
Home Guardian
Summer 2016. Mixed technique on wood panel.
For the cover of BoscoMagazine Georgy Ostretsov created a diptych, based on the universal experience of family portraits. The painting depicts the artist and his three small children; they are all worshiping their mother – the Home Guardian. An affection for Italian Renaissance, particularly for sculpture, stone carving, and painting on wood, gave the artist an impulse to make this diptych. The technique is as follows: you place a template on a wooden board and draw over with colored paints. The surface is being smoothed over several times so that the image becomes seamless.
Pavilion. Guardian of the Cosmic Tones
There is a new universe born in the artist’s family. A new person, a new personality, a new universe – this is the sequence that is suggested by the triptych The Miracle of Life and the sculpture Guardian of the Cosmos. The central section of the triptych is Family as the Artist’s Muse – a self-portrait of Ostretsov and his family. The wife here is the muse, the provider of all tools for the artist and the person who is responsible for continuing the family line. Guardian of the Cosmic Tones reflects the particular life circumstances which Ostretsov experienced: the image of his deceased mother who passed away when he was still young is transformed into the Mother of All Humanity who shields us from all harm.
