Designed to provide an insight into the wide-ranging talents and styles of Bessmertny, this exhibition showcases an exciting selection encompassing many areas of the artist’s oeuvre.  These new works include a collection of his much admired Ambience series.  These intricately detailed works depict ridiculous scenarios situated in sumptuous palatial surroundings.  Ambience xxvii: 2084 portrays an angry, sweaty boxer in an eau-de-nil furnished salon – a twenty first century bull in a china shop.

Alongside these are several works, in various media, inspired by China and its cultural heritage.  In the two largest works, entitled Opera I and Opera II, Bessmertny divides the surface of the canvas into little stages populated by quirky figures interspersed with pages of Chinese opera text and music. His series, Improvisations on the Theme of a Shanghai Poster, combine vintage advertising posters over painted with anecdotal scenes.

And then there are the vases. White Chinese porcelain pre-fabricated vases are transformed under Bessmertny’s brush into entertaining and thought provoking pieces in a continuance of the artists preoccupation with painted objects and the concept of the “found object” initiated by Duchamp’s  Fountain, 1917.

These works represent the very best of Bessmertny’s art, chiefly his dark palette, the witty, novel interpretations and the sheer technical genius through which he transforms the ordinary into works of exceptional beauty.  Yet again Konstantin Bessmertny succeeds in delighting and entrancing all who view his work.