Peter Liashkov - Prints

With a long career of paintings and exhibitions, Peter Liashkov has several prints in The Collective. 

Autobiography certainly informs his life, and the degree of social consciousness is demonstrated in his work. His obvious technical talents are combined with deeply personal images.

Born of Russian descent, in Rouen, France, living in Argentina and then moving to Los Angeles, he is truly international in his work. He is a painter of many idioms. He sees himself as one of the last vestiges of artists from WW2.

Mostly representative work but there is a level of abstraction in some of his prints.

He is one of those artists that can and does everything. From figurative to abstract, painting, drawing, prints. He would probably disagree with me, but I think he uses his considerable talents like emails or tweets. The works are like parts of conversations. They seem immediate, and urgent; there is a mystery to them, but one can identify all parts of the image.

The amount of work in this manner seems like paragraphs of imagery and idea. His considerable career, and the magnitude of his work is breathtaking. But he clearly looks to the past, and masters of the past for inspiration. 

The work is passionate and newsworthy. He looks to the world of making images with such a unique viewpoint.

In the Duendes, some of the prints we are offering, he has used his experiences in Oaxaca to present a mythical hero of sorts. The legend goes that Duendes are gnome like creatures that live in the bedroom walls of small children. They can be characterized by their personal magnetism and charm. They are considered to help the artists see the limitations of their intelligence. Which of course is useful to Peter especially as he reflects on his career. In some way, the places where they live is kind of like a Oaxacan Hogwarts, who sometimes come out to clip the toenails of young children! These Duendes are irresistible, but not always a good influence. They are ambiguous characters, which I like. Not quite bad, not quite good.

We are also offering the Argentina prints. This is a new series of digital prints done in collaboration with photographer Don Saban. The prints are based on photographs and drawings gathered during his years as the child of immigrants living in the provinces of Argentina. The images have been augmented by clips of a performance video called Puerto San Martin, produced during a residency of his in Buenos Aires, three decades later. An effigy of Evita floats throughout the series as well as iconic references to Argentine culture, such as the gaucho, school uniforms, films, and songs.