Bluesman

<…> As in the Soviet song “What are our boys made of?”, Rudyev and his paintings are molded from a mixture of Soviet iconography, Western fetishism, metaphysics, constructivist design and techno music. Willem de Kooning once said: “Painting has always been dead, and I don’t want it to bother me,” and Rudyev doesn’t want that. So he continues to capture his findings on canvas, which form new cells in the box of his history. Rudyev’s works are shrouded in a sense of nostalgia and vintage appeal, conveying a sense of “the thousand-yard stare” — immersing one in melancholic detachment and tearing one out of the present <…>.

Text: Sergey Bratkov