Costa Gorelov

Costa Gorelov was born in Moscow in 1993 and continues to live and work in Moscow. He studied at the Moscow Institute of Television and Radio Broadcasting, graduating in Film Directing (Cinema). In his work Costa explores people’s emotional and psychological states, often depicting them through the interactions of a figure with different spaces, objects and fashion items. Fashion, in particular, is paramount to his self-expression. It is also a symbol linking epochs, times, and traditions.

Gorelov grew up in the tradition of the North German Renaissance. German music, literature, painting, culture, and language have greatly influenced him, and played a key role in the formation of his style. The basic principles he uses when creating his paintings are those of the Baroque, the Renaissance, and interior design. Architecture plays a primary role in his art, in particular its basis upon stone and the golden ratio. Gorelov strives to incorporate elements of Gothic and Baroque architecture into the everyday life of his characters through handbags and accessories that carry the DNA of this architectural heritage. He wants to show that despite changes in trends and different eras, the fundamental things are unshakable and unchanging.

Costa Gorel

Black Friday, 2021

Óleo sobre lienzo (díptico)

240 x 260cm

Interview

What inspires you when creating? I’m always inspired by something new. I can be inspired by something that I might not have been paying attention to yesterday and it's always unpredictable for me. Constant inspiration is always architecture, music, literature, art, humor, interior design, fashion, and of course, my everyday bible is Virginia Wolf.

What are you working on recently? Now I’m working on the project for Dr. Robot Gallery, on a series of big format paintings. One of them is 3 x 4 meters high and is dedicated to Moscow’s subway. I’m going to create here a special tension between characters and space.

Tell us about your creative process. I can plan painting for a long time and I can make a lot of sketches but end up with something completely different on the painting. I always try to create my own, world my own stories using videos or something else, but painting is the only point where I feel I belong and it’s the main foundation of my life. I’m very happy and beyond joy when I’m painting.

Costa Gorel

Danube, 2020

Oleo sobre lienzo (díptico)

100 x 82cm

Are you participating for the first time in the fair? What do you expect from Art Madrid? I expect to enjoy the fair, to get to know new names new works and my work to become more recognizable. And of course, you always expect sunshine and warmth from Madrid.

You grew up surrounded by the tradition of North German renaissance culture. How can we see this influence in your work? This influence can be traced back to the fact that I always use graphics in my paintings and that I have always been inspired by Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach, Gustav Klimt, and so many others. I always tried to convey an extremely personal sense of understanding of the world with its duality, changeability and complexity. It’s very typical and important to me to connect the fashion and interior items with the characters and compositions. Yes, my characters are romantic

Fashion and nudity are two elements very present in your work, are both the mirror to explore people's feelings and expression in your process? I use nudity as a symbol, as a device to show the vulnerability and certain fabulousness and at the same time the strangeness of characters. Fashion is the constant concrete of history like stone with which modernity is linked to primitive times. My characters are hiding behind fashion and architecture because they want to protect themselves. In this way, I’m trying to express human feelings like insecurity, melancholy, and joy.

Costa Gorel

Personal Icon, 2021

Oil on canvas

40 x 50cm

Costa Gorelov participates in Art Madrid with Dr. Robot Gallery, along together with Katya Sheglova y Vova Perkin.

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.