Oleg Khvostov

Oleg Khvostov was born in St. Petersburg in 1972. Started painting when he was eighteen. Oleg has no professional art education; he preferred practical experience to higher art education.
But as critics and art historians note, perhaps this is precisely what helped Khvostov find his unique, easily recognizable style. After army he moved into a squat and became part of the post-Soviet artistic underground scene in St. Petersburg. In 1998 Oleg was invited to become a member of a radical art movement called The New Blockheads Society, he took part in over 50 exhibits and performances created by the group of artists. After two years he decided to move on to build a solo career of a painter. Since 2005 the artist Khvostov has been collaborating with leading Russian galleries and art institutions.
From 2000 to 2019 Oleg`s works were part of numerous exhibits in galleries, museums (including State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, Moscow Museum of Modern Art), biennales and fairs in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vienna, Berlin, Tirana, Istanbul, Geneva and other cites. Oleg`s work is recognized by important Russian art critics and collectors.
Oleg Khvostov uses themes from traditional painting genres - landscapes, still-lifes, portraits, multi-figured compositions - but also includes numerous "remakes" of world-famous works of art, from Leonardo to Jeff Koons. Nonetheless, his characteristic method of consciously simplifying form, freeing it from excess detail, and giving
underscored roundness and cylindricity to shapes, in conjunction with his bold colors and large canvases, make his artistic manner original and easily identifiable. His use of a vivid, contrastive color palette and his deliberate simplicity imbue the artist's works with the decorative effect and irony of pop art.