Smirnoff Veronica
Veronica Smirnoff is a British artist of Russian origin, (born Moscow, Russia, 1979). She gained a BA from the Slade School of Art and a post graduate diploma from the Royal Academy of Arts. She had her first solo show with Galleria Riccardo Crespi in Milan (2008). Smirnoff has exhibited in Moscow, Paris, Berlin, New York and London. She was selected for the John Moores Painting Prize UK (2010). She lives and works in London.
Constantly reassembling and alluding to pre renaissance and icon painting, folklore and Asian tradition, paintings are constructed with traditional elements - the fragility of gesso and solidity of wood, with pigment ground from semi-precious stones, mixed with egg yolk and wine to make the paints. The wooden supporting boards are made of oak in Russian monasteries and blessed. Layer by layer, the surface is encrusted with texture and then sanded down to its sedimentary surface. Smirnoff is fascinated by the idea of the "Icon" as the object of worship and its close relation to "popular art" with a wide repertoire of signs: the flat moulding of figures, conventional space and the abstract effects of colours.
EDUCATION:
- 2004-2007 — Royal Academy of Arts - Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art
- 1999-2004 — Slade School of Fine Art, UCL - BA in Fine Art with 1st Class Honours
- 1998 -1999 — Wimbledon School of Art - BTEC Foundation Diploma in Fine Art and Design
PRIZES, SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS:
- 2006 — Alumni Award, Royal Academy of Arts
- 2005 — Boundary Prize
- 2004 — Terence Cuneo Prize in Fine Art
- 2003 — Rodney Burn Prize in Fine Art
- 2001-2002 — Scholarship to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
- 2018 — Tales of Bright and Brittle, Riccardo Crespi Gallery, Milan
- 2017 — The Greater and Lesser Ways, Jessica Carlisle, London
- 2013 — Beyond The Shore, Riccardo Crespi Gallery, Milan
- 2012 — The Madding Spring, Vela Gallery, London
- 2010 — Zhar, Stanislas Bourgain Gallery, Paris
- 2008 — Morozka, Riccardo Crespi Gallery, Milan
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
- 2019 —Heat, 58th Venice Biennale, Venice
- 2019 — Walking Dream, MiArt, Milan
- 2018 — Painting Now 2, Riccardo Crespi Gallery, Milan
- 2016 — Sting & Trudie Styler: The Composition of a Collection Christie’s, London
- 2015 — Painting Now, Riccardo Crespi Gallery, Milan
Works
Smirnoff Veronica
I see You and No Horizon’s Blade (after Brodsky), 2018
Egg tempera on wood
30 x 40 cm
