Collection: Igor Kolodin: Mix

In his portraits, Igor Kolodin explores formal compositions of naïve and folkloric images, complicated by coded references to his own life and social trends, Russian history, iconography, surrealism and mysticism.  These are Kolodin’s personal history. His “Manhattan” abstractions are a contemporary topic but their surface speak to texture and textile. The geography of urbanism presents similar rigorous impositions to the constraints of creation on a loom. Warp and weft become streets and avenues. The Manhattan series on the other hand could be vertical depicting slices through architectural forms.

Kololdin’s migrant past, from Siberia and Israel to Canada, is topical in the context of the recent wave of migration from the Middle East to Europe.  Originally from Omsk, in southwestern Siberia, Russia, Kolodin attended the Omsk School of Arts from 1989-1994 where he graduated from the Graphic Department.  Kolodin was one of 66,000 Jews who left the former USSR for Israel in 1994. He immigrated again to Halifax in 2009.  Before arrival in Canada, his work had been exhibited in Israel, Poland, Sweden, reviewed internationally, and acquired for private collections as well as the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.