Valery koshlyakov biography

This bold Russian artist rejects contemporary approaches and trends, mourns past traditions and worships painting, whose practitioners have become an endangered species.

Russian artist Valery Koshlyakov (b.

1962) is a devotee of the classical European tradition of painting, which inspires his monumental works, but he feels alienated from contemporary art movements, which he regards as rootless. He sees contemporary artists as the prisoners of trends, condemned to work on a conveyor belt and unable to create outside that system.

He believes that modern art galleries focus far too much on hype, trends and business. Koshlyakov wants to bring the attention of artists, especially young ones, to the existence of painting that needs to be remembered, respected, studied and understood.

In a 2016 book called ‘The Message in Painting’, published by Moscow’s Museum of Russian Impressionism, Koshlyakov expressed