Pavel Mikushev’s long-standing practice is informed by Finno-Ugrian mythology and the Permian animal style of the ancient bronze casts found across the Urals and Western Siberia. Transcending folklore, his paintings merge these archaic zoomorphic figures with radiant geometric lines and shapes in an exploration of ethno-futurist cosmologies. According to the Komi artist, the straight, circular, and broken lines often depicted in his paintings represent long trodden paths across the ancestral lands of the Komi people.

Work in the exhibition: The Territory of Childhood (2023), installation, acrylic on canvas, wallpaper, dimensions vary. Courtesy of the artist