Sergey Kir: the artist that is revolutionising abstraction

Throughout the centuries, artists have led social progress by pushing the boundaries of culture and by translating their contemporaneity into their work, often anticipating tendencies. This is exactly what Sergey Kir is doing.

With a background in finance and a deep knowledge of architecture and art history, the artist developed his practice by combining those influences. The result is a new artistic movement called Conceptivism, that is intended to further the legacy of the 20th century’s Avantgarde and to open a new chapter in Western art history. Sergey Kir developed a unique method to realise his “paintings”.

He integrates financial modelling and portfolio optimisation techniques from quantitative finance into the artistic process, combining them with hand drawing, painting and digital photography. This potentially disruptive techniques adds another perspective to the debate around the interaction between human activities and machine optimisation in the creative industry.

Even though the process allows a certain level of freedom to the program, it is the artist that sets the framework for the computer to work and ultimately intervenes to complete the final image regaining total control over the outcome. Conceptivism celebrates both the idea, as a manifestation of the artist’ genius, and the aesthetic as a medium to engage with the viewer and connect with them on a deeper level. 

Just as Walter Gropius, the first Director of the Bauhaus, believed that mass production was reconcilable with the individual artistic spirit and developed the idea of creating a “Gesamtkunstwerk”, comprehensive artwork, in which all the arts would eventually be brought together, Sergey Kir is now reconciling individual creativity with digital technologies aiming to incorporate various forms of artistic expression, drama, emotional motivations and philosophical ideas in a single art piece.

With this “Abstract” series, Sergey Kir, is inaugurating a new trend in abstraction deeply rooted in western Modernism but completely innovative at the same time.

The flamboyant colours of his art pieces are inspired by the boldness of the Fauvism, the celebration of speed, progress and technology derives from the Italian Futurism and the Russian Constructivism, but the volumes, textures and patterns are something totally new.

The artworks resemble fabrics, geological maps, glass stained windows, fluids, in a kaleidoscope of unique forms achievable only through the artist’s method.

The geometrical abstraction that aimed to translate the chaotic world into his primary configurations is here surpassed by an approach that uses analysis and maths in the process, allowing the forms to run free, instead of constricting the artist’s imagination in predefined structure.

Sergey Kirby’s artworks leave the viewer surprised and astonished and they inspired curiosity and thinking as every art pieces should do. We are witnessing the birth of a new approach to art and abstraction that will certainly have an impact on the new generations of artists. 

The digital painting “Metamorphosis of a Dream” for example, is an introspective work that explores the subconscious, a recurring theme of the 20th century’s Avant-garde, especially Surrealism. But it approaches the subject not only from a psychological perspective, it actually portraits the mind of the dreamer.

The different layers, forms and lines are the depiction of the brain’s neural activities, they highlight the multiple visions that occur during a dream. The colours play a pivotal role in the construction of the image.

The cold palette that ranges from lilac to turquoise and mint creates a dreamlike atmosphere, whilst the purple, red, orange and yellow solid colours create interferences and therefore activate a reaction in the viewer’s brain.

As Kandinksy theorised in his “Concernig the spiritual in art” colours on the painter’s palette evoke a double effect: a purely physical effect on the eye and a spiritual effect in which the colour touches the soul itself. This is precisely what Sergey Kir achieves through this artwork.

Moreover, through his unique techniques, the artist is able to create fluid forms that accompany the eye of the viewer in a pleasant and reassuring exploration of the whole image. The combination of shades and shapes create a dynamic surface on the canvas that results in an enchanting optical energy.

This painting is the perfect example of Sergey Kir’s Conceptivism, an art form that aims to elevate the visual art aesthetics to a much higher degree and to engage the spectator on a much deeper level by triggering many of their senses and emotions.