night watchman Print

The drawings of Andrew Tars invite us to embark on a journey to legendary lands, fruits of his vivid imagination. The idiosyncratic world appearing on his canvas fulfills the escapist needs of both the artist and the viewer. The artist was born in Pavlovo-Posad, USSR, in 1957, and graduated from the Nizhny Novgorod art school in 1980. In 1990 he immigrated to Israel and lives in Beer-Sheva. He took part in many solo and group exhibitions in Russia, Poland, Finland, Israel and the USA. His works have gained significant recognition, and are today held in several private collections around the world. Andrew Tars is a coherent artist inspired by an abundant source of past international cultures. He reveals his unique world in which he is the philosopher, initiator, playwright, costume and cast manager and the creator of all happenings. His choice of costumes takes us back to different eras, especially the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and even the Minoan culture in Crete from 17th century B.C. The unique hats are prominent and emphasized, and the onion-like hats that cover the heads of male figures are in the shapes of the domes of Russian orthodox churches. In his big compositions he combines academic ways of painting with voluptuous, decorative textures. The rich chromatic quality of his oil paintings reflects his sensitivity and ability to convey a sensual, vivid, tangible, feeling of materials and textures, and his cheerful combinations of colors are based, among other things, on the use of complementary colors. Andrew Tars changes the proportions that exist in reality, enlarging and diminishing the dimensions of his drawn creatures according to their importance as in primitive and naive art where importance is size related.