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Afanassi Pud |
Ewegeny Feinsilber was
born in1951 in Saint-Petersburg Russia. Among other things Ewgeny
was an artist who assumed a nom de plume, Afanassi Pud, as his
signature name. This he did to disguise the fact that he was Jewish
since he would never have been able to offer and sell his paintings
do to the prejudices that continue to exist in Russia. Afanasi
attended the Leningrad Polytechnical University where he received
both Bachelor's and Master's degrees in combined physics and
mechanical engineering. After graduating he attended the Scientific
Research Institute where he was awarded a PhD. He later attended and
received a degree in fine art from the Saint-Petersburg Academy of
Painting and Sculpture and Architecture. In 1983 Afanasi joined the
illegal Association of Experimental Fine Art. This organization was
a collective of avant-garde artists devoted to pursuing a
post-modern direction. Because the organization was devoted to and
expressed a need for freedom of expression they found themselves
diametrically opposed to the government sponsored U.S.S.R. Artist's
Union. There were severe repercussions for those whose art work
didn't follow the government's guidelines of Social Realism.
Afanasi's paintings, along with other artists, were removed from
shows and confiscated. He was brought before officials of the K.G.B.
many times and interrogated. Only the collapse of the Communist
regime saved him from being arrested and confined as a dissident.
Afanasi once said "The creating of a picture must not and cannot be
limited by any condition or rule". For Afanasi the creative process
converts energy into images that live on the canvas without time and
outside the normal parameters of space. Afanasi sees himself much as
Einstein has described, as a Mystic; who has the ability to view the
universe in its unfolding and convert those images; not only to the
plastic art of mathematics, but creatively, on the surface of the
canvas. If one studies Afanasi's creations you will find that the
results of his efforts, as receiver and transmitter [of the
universe], produce a creation which is not only different for each
individual who experiences it; but different every time a single
individual comes to it. For the past several years Afanasi's
creative efforts have centered along the themes of town or city, the
art of theater, love and the imagining of the eternal. His work of
late, has been devoted to Jewish history. Many works by the artist
are in private collections in Russia, USA, Germany, Canada, Austria,
France, Italy, The Netherlands and Hungary. |
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