Venice Biennale 2024 · Guardian Art
Kantarovsky's Haunting Visions at Venice
Russian-born artist Sanya Kantarovsky presents 'Basic Failure' at Venice's Institute of Sciences, Letters and Arts, featuring darkly figurative paintings of distorted bodies and children. The exhibition coincides with the Venice Biennale, showcasing his signature blend of Christian iconography and supernatural intensity.
The 44-year-old artist's work centres on dishevelled figures engaged in acts of violence, hypnosis and surreal transformation, with paintings depicting bodies that bite, draw blood and occasionally metamorphose into mushrooms. The exhibition opens with 'Boy With Cigarette', a portrait in thick impasto featuring a pallid child with downturned expression, outlined in darkening blue brushstrokes, caressing an unlit cigarette with tendril-like fingers. Displayed within the palazzo's high-ceilinged rooms lined with antique books, Kantarovsky's darkly saturated compositions balance images of innocent childhood with profoundly unsettling psychological states. The artist describes his characters as "feeling both familiar and kind of alien at the same time", capturing the uncanny quality that has defined his practice.
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