Ivan Plusch

Ivan Plusch, born in 1981, is a young Russian artist on the rise and part of the Nepokorionnye group. He is based in St. Petersburg and has studied in various art schools, such as the State Academy of Art and Design, the Roerich Art School and the PRO ARTE Institute.

Ivan Plusch is among a generation of artists who were still children at the time of the fall of the USSR. He was marked by the consequent sudden sociological and economic changes in his country in the early 90s. His work is heavily influenced by the signs of these changes, from the freedom of speech, hard fought and regained with difficulties by the people and by their collective relationship with society, be it under the sign of alienation or of liberation. However, the work of Plusch is more involved than simply representing his sociological observations.

He reinterprets the history of art, reinterprets the norms of social realism, in particular those of monumental sculpture and integrates them into his paintings that he inserts in installations. He is comfortable with all mediums, working with sculpture as well as painting. Ivan Plusch is a complete artist delivering work that is part of the trends of thought of Post-Soviet art. Playing with the image of a happy future, from elements of the former communist regime, Plusch questions, on a larger scale, the relationship of men with their environment.

Submitted by Deborah Colton Gallery