Alexander Zakirov

Astafiev, Medvedev, Darth Vader, Stas Mikhailov, whales, bears, Dovlatov, dinosaurs, cats, bananas — the most unlikely characters can be found in the artist’s paintings. Alexander is an artist, lecturer and a tour guide. He runs his personal column, «Vecherniy Zakirov», at the Ploshchad Mira Museum Center, where he shares his idea of art. Founder of the street art project Kipish-Grad, which aims to improve the urban environment. Alexander began his professional journey with children’s graphics. You can almost always see animated details in his works, which help him fill the void. This way, the artist shapes his distinctive world. Both lyrical motifs and irony can be found in his works. The artist’s signature style is to draw cartoon teddy bears, for which the artist invents the environment anew or «settles» the characters in familiar environments. Throughout his career, Alexander collaborated with a number of festivals and projects, including the partisan Carte Blanche festival in Yekaterinburg, 30 Graney Tebya street art festival, Nemoskra Is Just Around The Corner project, Hot Stoj Hot Padaj exhibition, Na Volnye festival (Latvia). He held solo exhibitions in Barnaul, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Novgorod. Alexander entered the long list of the Best Public Art Project at the Sergey Kuryokhin Contemporary Art Award. His painting, Desyat Rubley, was noticed by Yuri Omelchenko, the author and host of ARTpatrol — the largest contemporary art YouTube channel in Russia, after which the painting was sold to a large Moscow collector.