Return (2024) Painting by Andrei Kreminskii

For over ten years, at art exhibitions in Kharkiv and Ukraine, fans of painting and graphics can see works signed with the ASK monogram. Sometimes these works are arranged in large series with sonorous, intriguing names: "The Twenty-Fifth Frame", "Teleportation", "Reflection of Flight". Sometimes these are single works, which, at the same time, are connected by numerous semantic, plastic or associative threads-conductors. A characteristic feature of many of them is "collage", a weave of the abstract and the completely recognizable, real. But next to these complexly organized graphic sheets or picturesque canvases, the viewer can see works in a strict academic manner, the attribution of which would be difficult if not for the familiar monogram. The monogram belongs to the artist Andriy Stanislavovich Kreminsky.

Andriy Kreminsky was born into a family of artists in Kharkiv; his personal and creative biography is connected with this city. He underwent long and serious professional training: a children's art school, an art school; after school, he studied at the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts, where he graduated with honors in 2008. While still studying, as an active participant in many exhibitions, he was accepted into the Union of Artists of Ukraine. Currently, he works as a teacher of special disciplines at the Kharkiv Art School.

Art historians have yet to comprehend the work of Andriy Kreminsky. They will probably have to look for terms that will define his main characteristics and tendencies. The author himself calls most of his works symbolic compositions, and in relation to his method he sometimes uses the term "abstract expressionism". In fact, the range of meanings and compositional solutions of these works is so wide that it can hardly be squeezed into the framework of one defining term. The picturesque fabric of many of Kreminsky's works is a combination of constantly slipping images, objects that have flickered in the surfaces of some crystal or modified with the help of an optical device. Suddenly this optical device focuses on some object; then the equestrian statue of the condottiere Colleoni grows on the canvas with all its convexity, the walls of Venetian palazzos or Lviv cathedrals appear, the Kharkiv "Mirror Stream" is outlined in the lilac haze, and a cabaret appears in the trembling red haze. One could say that these works are "kaleidoscopic" if they were not characterized by integrity and organization. The range of compositional solutions and plastic means offered by the author is extremely wide: from frank, almost childish simplicity to complex geometric spaces with a play of scales and visual effects.

Some of Kreminsky's works give the impression of a designer, while others seem to have been painted by a theater artist, and sometimes they are purely decorative compositions, deliberately designed in a "flat" manner, with exaggerated color. The variety of the master's pictorial and graphic techniques is striking: from oil and pastel to etching, screen printing and digital graphics. But, regardless of the materials and techniques chosen by the artist, a special, unique algorithm for creating compositions can be read in his works. The initial "impulse" can be anything: a living observation, a musical theme from Minkus's "Don Quixote", a scientific article, a memory of a film, a natural sketch, a fragment of a dream, a photograph, an optical effect, an almost involuntary, unconscious movement of a pencil on paper. Kreminsky knows how to see the abstract in the real and the real in the abstract. The picturesque chaos instantly becomes a picture of a night city after the artist makes a few precise, almost filigree strokes: silhouettes of windows appear, a small figure under an umbrella at a bus stop, street advertising.

The language of an abstract painting gives rise to many interpretations. But the author has a clear concept: he can easily tell about it, guide the viewer through the complex labyrinth of his composition, without insisting on an unambiguous reading.

Kreminsky's works have another undeniable advantage: they fit perfectly into the interior of a home. This is due to the high demand for them. The artist's works are in private collections in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Germany, Switzerland, the USA, and Israel.

Andrey Kreminsky is currently on a creative rise. He is an active participant in art exhibitions of various levels. And in his studio there are many more works that are still waiting to meet the audience.

Yu. Dyatlov

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