The Russian Kiss Painting

Model : Anna Kryaklina - .annn When I was child, the tabooest kiss was the Russian kiss, a kiss on mouth. Today the Russian kiss is no longer practiced. You can't imagine Vladimir Putin kissing his ministers like this ... I met Anna Kryaklina ( Анна Кряклина ) on the net. She’s a young Russian from Saint Petersburg. The work I did with her is the work of a gaze, mine, on another gaze, hers. We are two beings scattered over the two ends of Europe, so far and so near, over two ephemeral ways. We don't know anything more about each other. Nothing only I know she knits and she knows I paint. Images she makes of herself have nothing to do with selfies, her self-portraits talk about her. She's not looking herself, she's giving. May the Russian kiss survive this madness and find again its true meaning. This painting is exhibited at The National Art Center of Tokyo (Japan) while a France-Japan Art partnership, from 10 to 20 August 2023. --- "This series of portraits by David Affagard is made from photos of me that I took in the cold and rainy St. Petersburg. Here, in my native country, it is so difficult to keep up a good mood and a fine work; I hardly see the sun, I feel the pressure of the often gray and harsh sky. To me, the main thing is to try to be in motion all the time, never to stop, to nourish this vitality. If there is a drop in morale, you must immediately act and move. Only creativity saves me from falling. Immerse yourself in that, run away from the facility to improve yourself. Thanks to creativity, one can live in this world without being drowned in boredom and monotony, creativity is a powerful movement. This movement, no matter whether it is created or perceived, now, with this exhibition, it is there, in front of you." Anna Kriaklina