Alexei Lantsev

Born in Krasnodar in 1970, Alexei Lantsev is an abstract and semi-abstract painter. His boundary re-defying works establish his place within a lengthy tradition of the Russian avant-garde. After graduating from the celebrated Moscow State Surikov Academy of Fine Arts in 1996, Lantsev pursued a highly international career, with over twenty solo exhibitions including Russia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Hong Kong. His work is held in museums and private collections around the world: from The National Bank of Iceland, to the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Collection, to the Belgorod State Art Museum and Wolfson College, University of Cambridge.

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His artistic practice is a playful exploration of balance and harmony: a dance between the sensory and the structured. Working across a broad range of subjects  spanning traditional still life compositions, landscapes and seascapes, as well as evocative and historic cityscapes, Lantsev consistently experiments with the viewer's perspective and sense of scale, testing the limits of perception. ‘My challenge and task is to instantly capture the emotion of the viewer,’ he explains. From initial en plain air sketches which breathe a sense of dynamism and immediacy, through a series of studio sessions, each scene is 'completely transformed’, with any ‘excess’ pared away to achieve the essence of the scene. ‘The resolution of a painting.’ in Lantsev’s words, ‘is the result of an exchange between the anarchy of emotions interacting with the structure of logic.’