Andrey Lipko

Around 10 personal galleries (Voronej, Samara. Ylianovsk.)

Sensitivism/Sensation – is the name for an original style that A. Lipko has grown to liking. Andrey – is a true master of realistic landscape. His works seem to illuminate the positive energy and the emotions of joy and happiness. That is exactly the reaction the author of these works is looking for (hence the name of his style – sensitivity).  Andrey – is an interesting persona with nontrivial biography (needless to say, he became an artist only after surviving clinical death at the ring), an expert in arts, and a fascinating conversationalist.

Usually, those who decide to dedicate their lives to the arts, start to draw during their early childhood. Andrey Lipko was an active sportsman and was interested in music in his youth, while arts was not something he ever saw himself doing. The army turned everything upside down. Not only he began to draw, he has decided to do it professionally. He attended Saint-Petersburg Academy of Arts for no credit. Painting became not only a profession, but a lifestyle.

Andrey Lipko: “I think the reason for my creations is a search for harmony. I do not want to terrorize this particular minute, to terrorize a particular topic, I would like to create such works that would give people a sense of balance.”

These works deliver the public such emotional balance. Also, Andrey is looking for a balance in the new science – physics of the outer space. It studies the extra abilities of the human nature. The painter is bravely experimenting with such science. He starves for 40 days and sleeps for 2 hours. They say he feels great and it allows more time for his art work.

Most of Andrey’s works are landscapes, made in the same academic manner; there are a couple of genre works. His canvasses are different by his restrained, Saint-Petersburg-style of cold colors and faultless composition. Artist’s view finds a single harmony in rocky corner of Spanish mountains, and in the great panorama of “glorious sea, sacred Baikal”, and in striking Indian outskirts, where peasants are washing their clothes in a nearby river.

Andrey talks of his career road:

-       After the army, my life brought me to meet a professor of the Saint-Petersburg Academy, Valeriy Cherkasov. At that point he has finished his teaching, but have become my individual mentor. I believe, academia – is a very powerful push of self-development. I have tried different techniques, have been an active artist for over twenty years, and still cannot say that I have established my own artistic personality. A true artist will probably will never be satisfied with his own work, if he would still like to develop and grow. My relationship to the academia pushes me to search something deeper, this base is the reason for my search…

Andrey does not like to talk about his art work, he wants his work to speak for itself, and he quite modestly states:

-       My works are only unavailable in Australia, but this is to be corrected.

-       Andrey, why have you decided to become involved in art after the army, if before it you were not even attending any art classes?

-       I had a lot of things happening in my life, after which a lot of changes had to be made. This including my clinical death.

-       Your works are established in the best academic traditions. However, have you ever been to Saint-Petersburg?

-       You will not believe it, I have never been to Saint-Petersburg! I will have an exhibition this year in Pushkin, that will be the time for me to visit!

-       Judging by your art works, you have been to many places. These trips were based on the life circumstances or they were made especially for motivation?

-       Sometimes they were planned, sometimes they were not. I have often visited Eutope as a participant of my music group.

-       You are also a musician?!

-       It is a part of my life. I have a lot going on. I am interested in medicine, scientific works, literature, music, nuclear physics…

-       If I am drawing wind in autumn, then the viewer should be able to feel the brisk air around him/her just by looking at it, says the artist.

In Lipko’s point of view, to reach this goal would be to reject the entity of “I” and become the item he is drawing, - wind, leaves, air…

Such substandard principles are not the only oddity in the life of the artist. As he said himself, his life, comparing to the drama “Santa Barbara”, has a thicker plot! By the time he was fourteen, he was an active professional boxer, giving big hopes. During one of the fights, he has been hit by an opponent a couple of weight categories higher than he was, and hit his head of the floor. Emergency medical technicians found this teenager in a condition of clinical death. That’s when he realized something.

-       I can not tell you what exactly happened to me THERE – it’s impossible to describe it. I can not tell you what color is the light at the end of the tunnel. Everything was much more interesting. Ever since then, I know for a fact – there is not such thing as death. That’s why I am not afraid of anything, and every day of my life is full of light.

Andrey did not touch a single brush for at least five years since his death. In 1986, in the army, as someone asked if there is anyone who can draw, Andrey answered “I can!” without a single doubt, although the last time he remembered drawing was in elementary school.

-       I just KNEW, that I can. and, for the first time in my life since fifth grade, I sat down to draw at the level of a professional graduate of an art academy.

After the army, Andrey Lipko has studied with professor of the Saint-Petersburg Academy, Valeriy Cherkasov. Ever since then, art is the main activity if his life. It is the main one, but not the only one.

- I have a dream that I will become rich and will build a temple for All Gods in India – says Lipko. I have mastered the teachings of six religions, and believe that there is only one God, and every religion has its own impersonation.