After several months of being Indica, Riflemaker became Riflemaker again last night with the opening of Latvian artist Sam Kaprielov's first solo show, 'Le Rivage des Syrtes (The Opposing Shore)'.
Kaprielov, born in 1977, was a child prodigy, studying drawing in Leningrad from the age of five. He supported himself in various artistic trades, including billboard painting in Russia and mask-making in Venice, before arriving in London via the Cote d'Azur and Avignon. His monochromatic paintings combine elements from scraps of found photographs, Hitchcockian imagery (torture paraphernalia, mink stoles), vistas of the American West and characters who wouldn't look out of place in a Fellini movie. With this eclectic range of imagery Kaprielov creates a strange and seductive world which occupies a rich terrain between the real and the fantastic.
Kaprielov says that he finds inspiration in 'napkins, portholes, turtles, bunkers, desert... anything' and claims that his work refers to 'nothing outside of itself'. The title of the exhibition, however, refers to Julien Gracq's novel which is set in an imaginary country based on the Venetian republic. The characters in the novel live under the threat of an imminent invasion which never occurs, and are trapped in an undefined period whose precise date is obscured by wilful anachronism. Gracq defined the object of narrative as 'the creation of a secret iconography rather than the prosaic reflection of an equally prosaic reality or truth' - and to some extent the work of Sam Kaprielov shares a similar intent.
Sam Kaprielov: 'Le Rivage des Syrtes (The Opposing Shore)'
Until 31 March
Riflemaker
Beak Street
T: +44 (0)207 439 0000
www.riflemaker.org
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