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VALERY KONEVIN

Valery KONEVIN was born on the 16th of July 1952 in an upper middle-class family in Leningrad.

His grand-grandfather Dimitry Kosorotov was the Chief Pathologist of Russia in St. Petersburg and performed historical autopsies, including the autopsy of Gregory Rasputin. Grandfather Michael Tuberovsky was a famous playwright of fairy tales in Leningrad who encouraged Valery’s early art career.

By his own choice Valery began a science career after graduating from the Aircraft Design and Production faculty of the Kazan State Technical University at 1975. In 1978 he took part in the design of the first soviet flying rocket. He was also involved in the design of helicopters and super sonic aircrafts.

After serving two years in the Soviet Army as an officer of the Strategical Rocket Division, he studied philosophy, biology and mathematics in his free time. In 1980 he unexpectedly dropped his science career, entered the Art Academy in Leningrad, took part in Underground art activity and was forced to leave the USSR in 1990, partly because of the Perestroika and partly thanks to the expiration of his 10 year top secret conspiracy agreement.

He immigrated to Israel where he attracted attention of art critics and became an internationally recognised artist, travelling to USA, UK, France, Germany and participating in numerous expositions as a visual artist and a photographer.

He lives and works in Belgium, Oostende since 1994. He won the Nikon Photography Contest International’s award in 1998 in Japan and his paintings and photos are in international museums, including many private collections around the world. His artistic language is unmistakable, unique, bearing traces of his early theatrical childhood memories. His abstract paintings are a result of the mathematical “primary (base) art”, the approach based on fusion of topology and biology as archetypes and transcendental objects of the mind.

Children:
Daughters:	Alisa (1984-USSR)
	Elizabeth (1991-Israel)
Son:	Valery (1997-Belgium)
Education: 1969-1975	MSc in Aircraft Engineering, Tupolev State University, Kazan, Russia
1985-88	"Muchin" Art Academy of StPetersburg (monumental sculpture faculty) (Non-official education because of political reasons)
Professional experience: 1975-78	Engineer: Designer of rockets & aircrafts
1978-80	Military Service as an officer of a strategical rocket division
1980-83	Scene Designer of Yekaterinburg Academical Theatre
1983-85	Designer of Recreation Areas in Forestry of Yekaterinburg
1985-90	Municipality Carpenter in St. Petersburg (in order to have an independent art studio). Takes part in the Underground movement of the city. Works at Pushkinskaia 10, a famous first independent art community in Leningrad, later known as "The Museum of Nonconformist Art", StPetersburg
1990	Immigrates with the family to Tel-Aviv, Israel and becomes a professional artist
Artistic Residences:
1952-90	StPetersburg, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk. Russia
1990-91	Tel-Aviv. Israel
1991-92	NY. USA
1992	Paris. France
1993	London. UK
1994-present time	Lives & works in Oostende. Belgium
Artist at one of his unofficial studios. Leningrad. 1988. Photo by Rez Artist used his drawings as wallpaper because of the lack of money. Leningrad. 1987. Photo by Rez
Artist(left) with Yuri Gurov. 1989. Photo by Rez
Artist in one of his unofficial studios before immigration. Leningrad. 1990. Photo by Rez

Sculptures of the artist rejected by the committee of Unofficial Artists
in the Central Exposition Hall. Leningrad. 1989. Photo by Rez

From 1994 onward the artist lives and works in Oostende, developing mostly his abstract paintings which he calls: Primary Art. The original idea came first during his aerodynamical studies in the University when he got fascinated by the idea that two different mathematical fields could be transformed from very simple abstract form like the flow of air around a circle to a very complex "real aerodynamical flow" around a very complicated profile of a wing of an aeroplane, by a math equation, but not opposite.

Physiologically our senses form a model of outside world as a kind of map or set of patterns, which is transmitted to a brain forming different brain’ maps based on evolutionary developed primary patterns. The patterns should reflect some "universal language" like Kant's transcendental objects or "pure mind" because any brain is a part of the Universe itself.

Understanding these primary objects and their interaction is partly possible through the study of the evolution of life, especially the chemical end molecular evolution taken together with the psychological development of a child.
Figurative art of the artist is two-dimensional and simply inspired by children’s drawings and primitive art, with the same primary principles of objects with boundaries, coloured differently inside and outside, where the line is mostly important.

Artist takes only BW photos. Special "theatrical or surrealistic" style was inspired by his children’s play and was firstly used in the compositions for his figurative paintings, but developed later to more "photographic" style, based on shadows, light and movements of the camera.

Some works are presented at www.kunzt.be and at www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk under the name Konevin Valery for paintings and at Conevin Valery for photos.