Santo

Concept

In his works, Andrei Arkhipov explores his own sexual desires, which he could not
express directly since childhood, and searched for various artistic images and visual
languages for this. Sexual repression even today finds a different stylistic
expression, which depends on the state of the artist, on the topic that he explores on
the message that he puts into the work.
The artist expresses deliberately picturesquely, using traditional techniques and
stretching. As a rule, such picturesqueness is combined with heroes in masks, with
metamorphoses of the subconscious, containing hidden sexual desires. Painting, by
definition, is aimed at the continuation of the artist himself. Here the artist is as frank
as possible and uses the psychoanalytic method to create situations or characters.
The second direction can be called anti-painting. At least that's how the artist
portrays. This is a deliberately flat style, on the verge of humor, on the verge of a
meme, a joke. Here, everything intimate and tender is hidden under the mask of
burlesque, carnival, a combination of high and low. Familiar images from Soviet
childhood: toys, figurines, spruce decorations take on sexual, phallic images.
Ultimately, these are just pictures through which the artist distances himself from
himself. These works are directed outside, the viewer's perception becomes the main
thing, and the artist's desires are hidden in nuances, and you can’t just simply guess
them.
Now Andrei Arkhipov is also working with sculpture and other genres of art in order
to continue his exploration of himself.