Evgeny Mokhorev
Nailya Alexander Gallery is pleased to announce the third solo exhibition by St. Petersburg photographer Evgeny Mokhorev (b. 1967). The exhibition features twenty-five gelatin silver prints over the period of almost twenty years (1991- 2010). The exhibition will run from April 11 through June 9, 2012 at the Fuller Building, 41 East 57th Street, Suite 704. Gallery hours are 11am-6pm, Tuesday through Saturday and by appointment.
Mokhorev was eight when he began taking photographs. He is the first Russian photographer who showed such an incredible insight into the fragile and troubled world of children. Since the late 1980s, he has passionately explored the marginal territories of adolescence, the unsettling revelations of lost childhood, and the magical transformations into adulthood. His first solo exhibition outside of his homeland was in Paris in 1992, right after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was held within the framework of Mois de la Photo, a Photography Festival in Paris, where his series about street kids of St. Petersburg, Games Children Play, became a sensation.
Mokhorev’s sensitive images are exquisitely composed and taken in natural light. He possesses a special empathy that allows him to enter the complex universe of pubescence, and to capture the wonder of innocence and the delicate inner world expressed by his models. The Russian photography critic Irina Chmyreva compares Mokhorev’s models to the youth depicted in the Renaissance. They project a similar self-respect, composure, and a sense of themselves. They are as beautiful as the antique sculptures that abound in his city of St. Petersburg.
Mokhorev’s works are part of the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art, The State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg and the House of Photography in Moscow. Concurrently, Mokhorev photographs are exhibited through April 29 at Houston Fotofest, 2012.