Zina came to Rostov on Don

Leonov, Pavel

Leonov calls his paintings ‘constructions’. He draws a grid of vertical columns and horizontal beames on the jute canvases. The segments he calls TV-sets. He composes a narrative field of images, a rhythm of scenes of different sizes, separated by fir trees. Depth is created through planes, parallel to the surface of the image. He depicts friezes with processions of trains, carriages, buses, boats, birds, animals. His stage scenes have large fir trees as wings.

He uses radical combination of large masses of local colour, creating a festive mood. He combines a coarse brushwork for the scenes with a refined painting style for his figures, slightly distorted and with rigid pearl-coloured faces.