Semyon Agroskin is a multidisciplinary artist and architect who masters the diversity of mediums including painting, drawing, collage and installation.
As a painter Agroskin follows traditions and implements the approach of academic school of painting and refers to the cultural heritage of fine art. Being an important part of his recognizable style and his art practice, the language of painting acts more as a metaphor, symbolizing the constancy of values and timelessness of narratives and meanings disclosed artist's works.
Agroskin’s restrained palette which sometimes approaches to monochrome enables the artist and the viewer to perceive the idea and logic of depicted objects directly without being caught by the emotional level of perception.
The images and compositions created by the artist in accordance with canonical genres, such as portrait, still life, landscape, interior, are symbolic and possess multiple meanings being unrestricted by temporal and cultural references.
Semyon Agroskin’s paintings are paradoxical in the internal drama, conflicts, and tensions that the artist brings to life through art. The subjects of his work, from the early series “Estate Inventory” and “Home Theater” to the “Living Iron” and “Others” projects of recent years, are from everyday life and plainly unambiguous. The objects Agroskin depicts—hangers, linen, pots and tea kettles, people sleeping in train, cars, and the quick meals of migrant workers—are cause for dialog and for art.
Compositions and objects imprinted in Semyon Agroskin’s works are characterized by an almost religious ascetic austerity, a cult of simple things, symbolizing freedom from the domination of material values.
Most of the artist's works are permeated with a mystical feeling of an invisible human presence and of things taking place even when the character is not pictured. A broken cup, an overturned chair, scraps of food, or a door ajar are witnesses of someone's history, rituals, and everyday life.
The imagery of Semyon Agroskin is not static, it is not about momentary things or a specific moment in time, it is about before and after, about the irreversible and constant flow of time, transforming the things that we witness into kaleidoscopic memories.
"Agroskin’s works must be read exclusively “between the lines”, looking not for what the artist consciously encrypted and veiled, but the opposite: what unconsciously comes from inside him, through his paintings, often against his will: the flickering of searching, doubts, internal states and struggles. Agroskin is valuable not so much for what he masterfully expresses on canvas, but rather for the inexplicable elements that break free from him through his work and without him knowing.” Maria Naimushina.
Semyon Agroskin (b.1961 in Moscow, Soviet Union) graduated from MARCHI (Moscow Architectural Institute) in 1984.
Agroskin participated in numerous exhibitions in Japan, Germany, Belgium, France, USA, Great Britain, etc.
The works are included in the collections of The State Tretyakov Gallery, The State Hermitage Museum, The State Russian Museum, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, in private and corporate collections in Russia, France, Holland, Italy, Great Britain, Israel, USA.
Artist lives and works in Moscow and Israel.
Selected personal exhibitions include: “Voir et Comprendre”, L Galerie, Paris (FR), 2024, “Memory Archives”, In-Gate Gallery, Brussels (BE), 2023, "Se voir est difficile", Galerie du Tableau, Marseille (FR), 2023, "Passer sous silence", L Galerie, Paris (FR), 2023, Home exhibition, Paola Messana project, Marseilles (FR), 2022, "Home theater", Kaluga, ICC (RU), 2022, "Flashback", Club Gallery "Open Club", Moscow(RU), 2021.
Selected group exhibitions include: "Dialogue in time and space. National Art of the XX – XXI centuries”, MMOMA, Moscow (RU), 2023, “Home and family. Pictures of peaceful Life”, The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg (RU), 2022 – 2023, "Waiting for Don Quixote", Voznesensky Center, Moscow (RU), 2022, Cosmoscow, Moscow (RU), 2022, "Instant Fish Hunt", Zverev Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow (RU), 2022, “Travel Diaries”, KultProekt Gallery in CUBE Moscow (RU), 2022, «ART PLATFORM-ON» 2022, Gwangju (KR), 2022, "ID", CYBERFEST, Marina Gisich Gallery, St. Petersburg (RU), 2019, Cyberfest, St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum (2018), "Birch Time", A.Pushkin Literary Museum, Moscow (RU), 2018, "Art Riot: Post-Soviet Actionism", Saatchi Gallery, London (UK), 2017 – 2018, “Moscow Through the Ages”, The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (RU), 2017. 