Gennady Kornilov with some of his ceramic "Devils" 1981.
By Olga Kasyanenko
This is not simply an exhibition. It is an installation which could almost be made up of funnels and other bits and pieces from the depths of a ship's hold. Perhaps an ocean-going vessel, perhaps a spaceship -- the gaping portholes affording us a view of the quirky world of St Petersburg artist Gennady Kornilov.
A strange assortment of alien devils is composed out of ordinary handmade pots. Satans and lucifers look like a menacing army of Bill's and Ben's "Flowerpot Men". Their hands and legs are pairs of pots, boots are formed from half a pot, even a nose is made from a pot's neck.
Some of the items -- heavy wall plates -- are ceramic pictures presenting scenes of stars in the night sky, or the pocked surface of some unidentified planet. The clay or chamotte surface is decorated with printed fabric.
The faces of antique-looking characters stare out at visitors from their black velvet backdrops on the walls.
Most of the exhibits are made out of chamotte, a special clay made of burned and ground clay mixed with fresh clay, and used to create big forms.
In the past Kornilov was a sailor on the battleship "Circum- spect", which ploughed the freezing waters of the Barents Sea. He later became a plumber, then a designer and an artist- constructor before graduating from the glass department of the Mukhina Institute of Fine and Applied Arts. In the mid-70's he became one of the leading artists among a local group of ceramic artists called "One Composition."
Combining traditional treatment of material with a search for new forms, the members of "One Composition" designed their highly artistic creations as a strong contrast to the purely political art of ambition and sloganeering prevalent at the time.
Fashioning pieces of furniture, clothes and shoes with clay and chamotte, the artists did not just experiment -- they have proven that ceramics can fulfill functions of painting, graphics and sculpture.
And ceramics, like no other material, can keep prints of the artist's soul and of the warmth of his hands.
"Ceramics is an eternal material," says the artist. "That is why people draw conclusions about ancient civilizations through analysis of shards of crockery. Maybe that is why many well-known artists turn to ceramics as they get older."
But maybe the reason is different. Ceramics, despite its outer sturdiness, is capricious and stubborn, like a woman. It requires enormous patience and wisdom -- qualities not associated with youth.
The glimpse through the illuminators of Kornilov's works, created in the 70's and 80's, open the beauty of the sea's turquoise depths and the blue expanse of the heavens, the warmth of Russian shores and the cold of distant unknown vistas.
The ship of the artist penetrates into other galaxies, refers back to the past and easily passes ahead into the future. This world is never boring.