Biography: Arseniy Lapin (Russia)

Biography: Arseniy Lapin

Arseniy Lapin (known as ARSELAP)

Born in 1977 in Mytischi, Moscow region, Arselap’s studies of art began in 1986 at a local art school for gifted children: he graduated from the High Art School of Film Animation in 1994. He has been exhibiting since 1996 in galleries in Moscow, Belgrade, Strasbourg and Geneva.

Arselap is known for his creative marionettes and also for his stage creations. In 1997 he was awarded the Golden Masque Prize – the most prestigious theatre award in Russia. Since 1996 he has been teaching visual arts at the Myitischi Art School for Gifted Children; the same school where he started his artistic studies in 1985.
Arselap has a rather peculiar hobby: at night when the huge city lays lost in sleep the artist covers with painted graffiti the walls and doors of the apartment houses where his friends live. The artist gives away dreams and fairy-tales while recreating them on indifferent urban surfaces.

In his paintings, Arselap organizes his space well and presents his images with ease. Modest in size and poetic by nature, Arselap's paintings emanate kindness and light irony, which both the author and the spectator seem to enjoy. Like his nocturnal hobby, they have the feeling of dreams, like fairy tales set in the urban landscape of modern Russia.

Adapted from an original text by Natalia Potapov, Galerie Kraska, Geneva.