Bidspirit auction | Katsalap Alexander Sergeevich (1957) ”Winter

Katsalap Alexander Sergeevich (1957) ”Winter landscape”. The year 2015-2023. Canvas, acrylic. 80x70 cm. - ”Winter Landscape” is a typical example of Alexander Katsalap's noumenal approach, where the real motive arises on the border of the recognizable and the abstract. The artist works with nature as with a state: the cold silence, the stopped breathing of space, the transparent depth of the winter air — all this is conveyed through rhythm and the relationship of planes, and not through direct narration. The composition is based on the contrast of a picturesque background and geometric shapes embedded in it. Vertical modules resemble a forest area or a coastal line reflected in the water, while bands of white snow capture the horizon and create a sense of peace. Against this background, the suprematist elements — like signs or ”objects of thought” — hover, collide and balance, turning the landscape into a metaphor for an inner territory where nature becomes the language of reflection. Dating 2015-2023 highlights the long—term work with the motif: returning to the canvas, clarifying the relationship between color and shape, layering and adjustments - as an attempt to ”capture” not the appearance of winter, but its essence over and over again. The laconic palette and dense acrylic texture enhance the feeling of composure and clarity, leaving the viewer space for their own recognition. Katsalap Alexander Sergeevich was born into the family of an officer in the Pamirs in 1957, but soon his family moved to Moscow. He graduated from the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov.Member of the Creative Union of Artists of Russia. The author of the theory of noumenal art. Since 2001, he has been working in noumenal art or Noumenart. Noumenart (from the Greek ”noumenon” – cognizable by the mind) is the search through art for a substance unknowable by the five senses. The main technique of noumenal art is the initial chaotic application of colored spots and lines to canvas or paper, followed by the recognition of images, plots, and events in this color and texture chaos. In the mid-2000s, Katsalap was lucky enough to meet one of the leaders of the movement of nonconformist artists (”Sixties”), Vladimir Nikolaevich Nemukhin (1925 - 2016), with whom he continued to communicate until his last days. A representative of unofficial art, one of the classics of the second wave of the Russian avant-garde, Nemukhin had a great influence on Alexander, who considers him his spiritual teacher. A new stage begins in the artist's work and a new project ”My Territory” continues to this day. A country house and a plot surrounded by a fence become the author's universe, in which minimalism and simplicity of daily life are equivalent to harmony and fullness of being. Like many nonconformists, Katsalap also rethinks the achievements of Russian art in the 1910s and 20s. He combines Malevich's suprematist forms with a primitivist aesthetic, filling the entire space of his works with geometrized characters and rejecting perspective and depth.