Valery Koshlyakov

(Russian, born 1962)

Valery Koshlyakov is a Russian artist whose large-scale paintings on corrugated cardboard reference political murals, historic monuments, and ruins. “I work with the pure terrifying category which is inaccessible to man—the tragedy of dying, fading,” he’s said of his practice. “Here yesterday, gone today. It’s an eternal human theme, and the pictures—they are metaphors of this thought, like mourners.” Born on June 21, 1962 in Salsk, Russia, Koshlyakov studied at the Grekov Art College in Rostov-on-Don. The artist represented Russia at the Venice Biennale in 2003, and his works are included in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow and the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College. He lives and works between Moscow, Russia and Paris, France.