Dmitriy Kedrin

I received my first conscious culture shock in 1970. I was eight years old, and for six years I had been drawing enthusiastically and learning a lot. However, two SAS calendars from 1965-1966 featuring works by Otto Nielsen, given to me by an adult, changed everything. I suddenly realized that I was just a child drawing children's pictures. That art is an ocean, and I was still standing on the shore. And I needed to take the first step forward...

I can't say that my journey since then has always been successful. But gradually, I came to understand the goals and objectives of my painting. Here they are:

To gain complete freedom, I’m trying to start moving backwards—toward childhood, ignorance, lack of sophistication, simplicity. For this work on myself, I could use another lifetime.

A vague yearning for the edge of the world, beyond the horizon; dream and mystery; fear and curiosity; the desire to blink away reality, to blur its familiar forms and images. These are some of my anxious and cherished states that I strive to convey in my paintings.

As a teenager, during the summer months, I wandered through the forests near Moscow with a painter’s case and two sandwiches, searching for a picturesque subject. I rarely encountered people in the forests or on the roads; I only heard a distant tractor or the mooing of cows. If I spotted a rare passerby on the path or a horse slowly pulling a cart toward me, I would dash into the bushes and sit there until I was alone again. To dream and draw without interference.

My abstract works are, in fact, landscapes too. Space, air, nooks and mysterious distances, hints and half-hints of reality... Since I have abandoned figurativeness in this practice, I now pay more attention to the surface and formal properties of the material. I have to create more intrigue in the compositions and, in general, harmonize the picture in a different way.

Dmitriy Kedrin. Born in Moscow in 1962. Grandson of the renowned poet Dmitry Kedrin (1907-1945).

Graduated from the Krasnopresnenskaya Children's Art School in 1979. Graduated from the Moscow Polygraphic Institute in 1986, specializing in graphic design.

He has worked in advertising, graphic design, and illustration.

Member of the painting sections of the following creative unions: Moscow Union of Artists (1997), the Union of Artists of Russia (2023), and the Moscow Union of Artists of Russia (2024). Participant in over 90 group and solo exhibitions in Russia and abroad.

Winner of the Golden Brush of Russia competition (Moscow, 1998). Winner of the Saatchi Online Gallery Showdown (London, 2009). Winner of the Creative Environments club competition (Central House of Artists, Moscow, 2012). Diploma recipient of the Moscow Union of Artists (2020). Winner of the International Abstract Art Competition and Exhibition "World of Abstraction 2024" (1st place, Moscow). Participant in Artinvestment auctions (sales in 2021, 2023, 2024).

Lives in Moscow.