With brushes and words, Vadim Korniloff smiles on the times
Painter Vadim Korniloff sometimes defines himself as a “mecontemporary” artist. Is he the antithesis of the contemporary artist? Always elegant, ready for a gentry party, he doesn’t handle concepts or practice artistic hijacking. His colorful figurative paintings are used either to illustrate poetry or novels, or to take an oblique, distanced look at the world around him. He also enjoys writing, from brief tragicomic chronicles to more thoughtful texts.
In the shadow of books, the chaos of life opens doors for him
“I was bored at school”.
His tone is heavy and disillusioned. So he left it as soon as he finished compulsory schooling and entered working life. An enthusiastic reader of literature, after a few years in the corporate world, like others on a journey of initiation, he was ready to take up painting.
With his cheerful, sociable spirit, circumstances smiled on him: his encounters led him to Beirut in 2007, where he exhibited at the Pièce Unique gallery, then to New York and Paris. Surprised by his international success, the artist keeps a cool head. He continues his work and invests in the local scene in Metz, where he lives at the time. He also enjoyed regional success, thanks in particular to the invaluable support of press and book publisher Aziz Mebarki (Courrier Messin, L’Estrade, Memento Mori).
At the end of 2024, when he moved to the city of Nice, he began to paint outdoor scenes, whereas until then he had been adept at indoor scenes. But his naïve, surrealist style with its vivid color palette remains, as does the dreamlike, playful atmosphere of his canvases.
With irony and poetry, Vadim Korniloff writes and paints contemporary chronicles.
Vadim Korniloff’s work is a blend of joyful irony, sometimes cynical but always lucid, poetry and daydreaming. When illustrating literature, poetry or novels, Vadim defies the laws of gravity, creating surrealistic images full of innocence and spontaneity.
“Our postmodern world today is speeding along, driven by the inexhaustible fuel of its arrogance, and it is with a jubilant din and collective euphoria that we must encourage this victorious parade.”
In his comic strip “A Day at Oblomov’s”, he brings to life the novel Oblomov by the Russian writer Ivan Goncharov, and gives us an aspect of his melancholy: the old world was no worse than the one we’re drawing now, or the one to come.
Free of all academic rules, he expresses his emotions spontaneously and doesn’t dwell on his work. He passionately pursues his creative process to move us or make us laugh.
A literary painter, Vadim Korniloff enjoys writing, not only short, ironic chronicles, but also more learned texts. For the June 2024 issue 2 of Revue Antigone, he penned a thought-provoking article: “Artwork? Authentic value or authentic belief? He also prefaced the 2024 edition of the novel “A l’ouest le vent tourne” by Russian author Julian Semenov, in its new translation published by Canoe (Flammarion Group).
Artistes Actuels will be delighted to present its work at the “ Spring Fantasies ” exhibition in Paris from March 20 to 30, 2025, in the company of artists Saré, Rachel Levy, Rebecca Campeau, René Apallec and Vanessa Hié.
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