The Irina Starzhenetskaya and Anatoly Komelin’s personal exhibition «Sunset», the name of which goes back to the psalms of King David, is open at the Main Building of the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum from February 15.
Irina Starzhenetskaya, an artist, and Anatoly Komelin, a sculptor, are called masters of the new sacred art. According to Alexander Yakimovich, an art critic, Starzhenetskaya and Komelin is a married couple who combines in their union the main types of art and the main ways of approaching sacred themes.
The exhibition displays the artist’s paintings created by wide bold bright brushstrokes and the sculptor’s works made in a mixed technique.
Irina Starzhenetskaya and Anatoly Komelin perceive the world as an endless theatre, where a person is the main character, and sky, earth, flowers, countries, cities are monumental works of art.
Despite the fact that the artist and the sculptor use different graphic techniques and means, their works are harmonious, consonant and successfully complement each other.
Most of the works of artists created in Tarusa, where the second workshop is located. There, they participated in the restoration of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ and the Cathedral of Peter and Paul: Anatoly Komelin made a stone iconostasis and Irina Starzhenetskaya made mosaics on the facade and inside the Cathedral. She also took part in the painting of the Small Ascension Church on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street in Moscow.
The artists’ works can be found in collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and other museums of Russia and abroad, as well as in many private collections.
Irina Starzhenetskaya, an artist and a member of the Russian Academy of Arts, and Anatoly Komelin, a sculptor and an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts, were awarded with the Medal of the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh (First Degree). They were also awarded with the gold medals of the Russian Academy of Arts.