Alexander Makhov, Farewell

Alexander Sergeevich Makhov was born in Moscow in 1944. He studied under the mentorship of the legendary Yuri Burdzhelian and May Miturich, who passed on the inherited avant-garde tradition and encouraged their students to think for themselves in order to understand the broader culture. In the early 70’s, Makhov became a member of the distinguished non-conformist group known as the Lianozov Artists. Makhov’s paintings from the 1960’s and 70s were profoundly inspired by German Expressionism and the phantasmagoric nightmares of Hieronymus Bosch and Francisco Goya. Although they have not survived the test of time, the historical motifs and fiction in his works become virtually indistinguishable in his works from the 1980’s. His paintings present fiction movie-like characters, staged in a cosmic futuristic world, with tenderness and human expression. They lead us to believe that if our fantasies exist in our reality, they may be passed along to an unknown and usually frightening future. The peasant-style allegory ‘Dream of Perestroika’ ironically shows our common disillusionment between our expectations and the hideous reality; however the soft muted color arrangement, the fullness of light and the poetic naivety of an almost fairytale, signal a sign of hope.