Alexey Adamov.

Born in 1971 in Taganrog.

In 1992 he has finished M.B. Grekov Art School in the city of Rostov-on-Don.

The participant of exhibitions since 1996.

Member of the Creative Union of Artists of Russia since 2004, of the International Art Fund, and of the Moscow association of artists since 2005.

Corresponding member of the International Academy of Culture and Art since 2007.

Review by M.F. Markeyeva, art-critic from the Central House of Artists, Moscow

These splendid words of a great Russian poet comprise deep understanding of spiritual essence of nature, which comprehension and representation in a work of art is a uneasy task and happiness of each landscape painter.

Alexey Adamov whose all creative work is devoted to a landscape is able to see beauty everywhere, in a rural court-yard or in a footpath of a wood, i.e. in the very habitual and unpretentious motives. A particular throbbing and tenderness in the nature representation are characteristic of a lyrical feature of his talent.

Amidst various trends in the modern painting bringing often chaos and destruction it is important and pleasant for us to find an artist who follows the Russian realistic tradition and whose creative work bears the stamp of talent, strikes a deep chord in the human hearts.

Alexey Adamov is both a landscape painter in the full sense of the word, and a marine painter. These two basic components of his creation simultaneously exist and develop, and it is difficult to tell what component is more successful.

Alexey was born and has grown up in Taganrog, on the coast of the Sea of Azov. The sea element in all its displays was included in his life from early childhood and it was deeply and keenly felt by the artist.

A rough and calm sea, rise and fall of the tide, silent moonlit nights, sunny and dull days - they all have been represented on canvases of the painter undergoing gradual change from romantic enthusiasm to serious realistic treatment of the image. In his early works executed smoothly with almost an imperceptible touch having the most subtle transitions of tone and glazing there is an aspiration for rendering of lighting effects - moonlight in the dark sky and charming paths on the moonlit mirror-like surface of water with a lone sailing vessel mysteriously looming in the distance, hot sunsets flooding all the space with light, dazzling calms or soft hazes of a predawn morning; later a sea landscape gradually assumes more and more epic scope. The painter gathers strength as if gaining his freedom, movements of his brush become free, and his stroke gets resolute and exact, Adamov’s works acquire a sharp sensation of reality which makes an image look more and more complete and concrete. Elements of romanticism have certainly remained because it is usual for the artist’s soul and it is evoked by the nature of the sea which always excites the imagination of the person and stirs up feelings in one’s soul, where ecstasy and delight in the beauties of nature are combined with fear and trembling at its might, and now they are shown not in external effects, but in general elation of emotional pattern of a picture, in the author’s enthusiastic and loving appeal to the spectators, arousing their reciprocal feelings, and therefore anyone is indifferent to these paintings.

We can call Alexey Adamov the glorifier of the Sea of Azov by right. The Sea of Azov unlike the Black Sea is not so bright and dazzling blue, it is shallower, there are soft pearl-gray and ochreish tones prevailing in its colour. The nature itself seems to be closer to an inner life of any person, it makes anyone feel contemplative and meditative. Then his pictures turn into wonderful poetic tale of the sea and the man. Such are "The Old Man and the Sea" (2004) and also a picture, representing two boys on a stony coast in the early morning where the boys are watching a seagull flying over a calm and smooth sea shrouded in mist. The picture is accompanied with N.P. Ogarev’s verses:

"That day will come; sea waves
Will lap welcoming us again,
And freedom-loving we shall dash away,
That way - to a free sea-shore".

Such feelings are probably experienced by children: one of the boys pointed somewhere far to an opposite coast with his extended hand.

Generally speaking, A. Adamov’s creative work is entirely poetical and therefore, a lot of his works are accompanied by verses.

In landscapes of the southern and central Russia it is possible to note something common, that is a theme of almost all the creative work of Alexey Adamov - it is a surprising silence, harmony and rest. In Adamov’s landscape painting there is practically no dramatic tension, no conflicts and collisions - only tranquility, sometimes a silent sorrow. Having given way to such mood (which is difficult to give up), the pictures invite, they are wanted never to take one’s eyes off. Subjects are taken from the nature and they carefully worked at. Tonality is irreproachably adjusted, due to what the space deepens and is filled with air. The painting is light, at times lucid, there is always a place for the sky in it, even if a wood is represented, and that is why it is filled with light. The effect turns out amazing - we feel as if we contemplate wildlife looking at his paintings. That’s just what probably attracts to the Alexey Adamov’s landscapes which not only cause aesthetic experience, but also arouse kind human feelings, evoke memory, remind of the eternal. The artist represents that is familiar, close and dear to each of us, that is connected to a concept of the Homeland: "The Bend of the River", "A Little Village", "The Wood in Autumn", "A Small Fisher", "A Misty Morning", "In a Wood Going Mushroom-picking" and many other works which make a picturesque portrait of the native nature - soft, thoughtful, free.

A. Adamov is the artist who has a keen eye for changeable and variable conditions of nature, and who is able to transfer it on a canvas: clearness of a summer day and the gloomy lull before the storm, freshness after a rain and warmth of the setting sun, a transparency of an autumn wood and whitish mists in the morning.

Sometimes a deep lyricism also includes some faint note of nostalgia which intensifies emotional influence of a landscape on a person.

... It is early summer morning on a bank of a river. The eternity, silence and rest reign here, not a leaf is stirring. The opposite bank covered with a wood, has sunk in a mist. The mist spread everywhere softening outlines of the bank and of a footpath winding along it; the ground and the sky merge on the horizon, and in a gap between the nearest trees, on a meadow there is a peasant woman who, having kneeled, milks the cow having turned its head with a white asterisk on the forehead to her. They have merged in one - a man and an animal - in full harmony among themselves and everything around them. And verses sound again:

"Having fallen asleep I saw valleys
be in the festal attire of spring
And I also saw rural pictures
Of the treasured Russian place".
F.N. Glinka.

Sincerity, slow narration, lyricism, deeply personal experience of the nature are typical of A. Adamov’s landscapes, and such characteristics are clear and close to the soul of any Russian, and they find a grateful response in it.

Alexey is still a young artist enough, he was born in 1971. Observing his creative work within a number of years, we can clearly see how impetuously he develops and grows his skill of paintings, his art becomes more and more deep and substantial. Leaning to more monumental forms, complex compositional solutions, to large sizes of a canvas is outlined.

One of last years’ works is "Shelter Sacred to Heart". It is a panoramic landscape, which is a reflection on the destiny of Russia where the past, showing itself in the present, sets thinking of the future, returning us to the sources.

...From the height of a steep hill a monk is gazing at such a familiar central Russian landscape which spreads before him, so that Sergei Yesenin’s lines are recollected: "... Immense space - no end in sight, only azure expance arrests one’s attention". The silence, yellowing foliage and cloudiness of the sky remind that the autumn has come. It is lonely around, only one can see roofs of the monasterial buildings at bottom of a hill, and a temple, topped with a cross, uplifts its dome high. The temple is placed in the centre of the picture and it is its dominant, and the dome of the temple is in the centre of the sky. The symbolism is precisely designated, it also determines a spectator to a certain course of reflection.

Alexey’s art is human-oriented. It confirms biblical truth - it is good that is made by God. Man can remain himself only preserving this world, living in harmony with it, or else he becomes a barbarian and even worse.

Realistic art is capable to arouse high and noble sentiments creating human souls, and an artistic method and a way of expression which an artist uses, is determined by individual peculiarities of his person. A. Adamov is a modern master who goes his own way, working out his own style appropriate to his person and his world outlook on the basis of experience and traditions of Russian realistic school. The main thing characterizing his works and making them typical is an especial subtlety of feelings and poetry and lucidity of painting as well.

Alexey Adamov is an industrious artist indeed. He is an author of hundred works, he held more than ten only personal exhibitions, his creative work arouses interest of both admirers, and buyers. Taking into account the artist’s youth and inexhaustible creative activity, we can tell his main achievements are still ahead!

M.F. Markeyeva, art-critic from the Central House of Artists, Moscow, 2006.

Review by Dr. Lyudmila Malukova, Doctor of Philology and the literary critic

To tell about Alexey Adamov it is not simply even because the true artist is always a search. And the search presupposes complexity of not easy way - there is no sweet-smelling rose without a prickly thorn. Certainly, it is possible to disagree with the artist on the issue, but one thing is unquestionable: anyone remains unmoved by his paintings. In them there is that bewitching charm of contemplation of terrestrial beauty which will set thinking of much: first of all thinking of an eternal and momentary character of human life, a joy of life and a grief of wasting away. To feign all these feelings it is impossible. You only can to go gradually to them, enriching your gift of aesthetic sight incorporated already from heaven.

Alexey Adamov was born on September, 6th, 1971. Regal magnificence of paints of autumn is initially his distinctive feature. But it is astonishing: it seems that feature has slumbered up to certain time expecting the hour of triumph. His first drawing submitted on a TV competition (when he was 11 years old) was not a landscape or a picture of the mysterious open space of sea, it was a picture of a concentration camp - it was the place that extremely opposed to a true beauty of terrestrial life. From that monstrous phenomenon made by men, he made a start to open mankind’s eyes to its genealogic source and its true purpose with his all the further creative work. You see the beauty of nature in its wide expression (which attracts Alexey) assumes reciprocal feeling of love on the part of men and women.

And this beauty was everywhere: in historical and natural surroundings of a native Taganrog, the place from which Adamov’s family comes, and in neighbouring and distant parts of the Don territory. It was in Taganrog where he finished a primary art school in 1985. His way to Art was "blessed" by Alexey Adamov’s grandmother Lydia Evteevna, who had brought her grandson in this fantastic world of Art and Beauty. Whence the direct way to M.B. Grekov Art School in the city of Rostov-on-Don ran. Alexey has the warmest memories of his alma mater. He carefully keeps the attendance list of his classmates under glass as a dear relic in his studio, and the image of his instructor Vladimir Ivanovich Begma is his creative reference point up to the present. When he is asked about the time of his creative start, he answers without a moment’s hesitation: "I remember me be always drawing ". However, Alexey’s father drew too, besides he was a fine master of engraving. The root of Alexey Adamov’s aesthetic vision must be here too.

But the most brilliant gift if it is not claimed, dies. Adamov’s gift is constantly getting richer. The artist has organically mastered the nature of the Don region, having realized it on his canvases in original miraculous images. He is feeling necessary to go to near-by or far-off areas of the Don region often with its legendary stanitsas (large Cossack villages) having stretched along the coast or deep into the vast expanses of the steppes. However his "small native land", inspiring the artist to do creative acts, has proved to be narrow since certain time. No, Alexey has not betrayed the Don region and his native Taganrog: he has still preserved his unearthly love and attachment to them, he will annually carry out his crowded wonderful art exhibitions in Taganrog as before. But now they became a subject of viewing by many spectators in Russia and in Europe: in the Central House of Artists in Moscow where his paintings were exhibited with success in 2003, previously in Prague and in the Russian art gallery of Paris, having aroused obvious interest of compatriots and public not from Russia.

Alexey Adamov is the person of tireless energy. Since his first personal exhibition in the building of Chekhov municipal library in 1997, he has made a high ascent: 2001 - an exhibition in the Don Art Fund, 2001-2002 - in Prague, 2003 - in Paris and in the Central House of Artists in Moscow. Every month his works participate in various expositions and opening days in galleries of Moscow and of Europe, for instance a new exhibition prepares for its opening in the Central House of Artists on August, 13, 2004 in Moscow. Undoubtedly, it is a parameter of a high gift and a recognition of his creative person.

It is known, that art is beauty, and it is a mark of the good too. Let this eternal value not become scanty in generous hands of the artist.

Lyudmila Malukova, Doctor of Philology, the literary critic.