Press Release
Yan V. Sourtaev paints the real and the surreal. He is a master of representational rendering who is adept at creative storytelling. Taking inspiration from Salvador Dali and great Russian artists, he melds both style and narrative into his work. His landscapes are like fragments of the subconscious, strewn with references to the cosmos and classical painting. The mixture of figurative subject matter and surreal spatial complexity demands attention. Yan blends the existential, the sensual, and academic knowhow. He accomplishes much with an effortless economy of means. His watercolors and oil paintings show a studied confidence - the mark of a mature, stylistically refined painter. He fills his canvases with beauty and metaphor. The works are fantastic alternative worlds that hint at what is possible when the mind is free to wander and desire.
Yan Sourtaev, a native of Russia, currently resides in Toronto, Canada, where he is continually inspired by his surroundings. [Agora Gallery, NY, 2003 exhibition]
"Snow Fields" currently on exhibition at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.