Yuri Elperin

Yuri Elperin is a skillful, talented practitioner of tachisme action-based painting whose busy canvases take inspiration as well from the great Lyrical Abstraction artists of post-WWII Europe. Elperin, who prefers to work on a scale of several feet across, fills his pieces with shapes and tangles resembling live wires in every color. Behind the layers of spirited lines, rolling shapes with a hint of eroticism dance across the shallow space. The energy is unmistakable.

Among the Latvian artist’s recurring inspirations are jazz improvisation and the complexity of courtship between lovers. Each artwork is named after a particular musical composition which inspired the artist. Of music’s instantaneousness, Elperin explains, “What I am trying to do is catch and freeze these ghostly images.” Though the artist experienced harsh art censorship in both his hometown of Riga and the Russian military, into which he was conscripted, he did not lose faith in the power of art to communicate. “These experiences,” Elperin declares, “have helped me discover a passion for combining intellectualist methodology and emotional and physical engagement in art.”