’When I create something, I try to leave my personal impressions outside the studio as much as possible. For me, it is important to detach myself from everything real, worldly, immediate, mundane, and human. In those moments, I am taken over by an entirely different being — the being of ‘Serezha The Artist,’ if one may call it that.’ – Sergey Karev

Sergey Karev’s artistic practice explores the relevance of painting as a medium for engaging with contemporary reality. Trained within the traditions of the academic school — from his studies at the Savitsky Art College in Penza to the Ilya Glazunov Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, and later the Joseph Backstein Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow — Karev brings together a rigorous technical foundation and a critical, research-driven approach to image-making.

In a number of his works, the artist turns to processes of reconstruction and repetition. He photographs his earlier paintings, fragments the images, and prints them in black and white before physically reassembling the pieces into a composite surface. Preserving distortions and imperfections, Karev reconstructs the original composition, over which he then applies a new painterly layer. This method establishes a dialogue between past and present iterations of the image, questioning authorship, memory, and the stability of visual form.

Through a nuanced engagement with the materiality of canvas and paper — and through layered applications of varying density and chromatic intensity — Karev creates large-scale works that operate as transitional spaces. These compositions invite the viewer into altered psycho-emotional states, extending beyond the limits of everyday perception.