His dream is to build a church in Kiev and to paint it himself. Such an idea is a rare thing to occur in somebody's mind nowadays though it is not new and was expresses with the utmost clarity by evangelist Lyka in parable of folly richman (Luk 12,20-21).

Sergei Kochkin is sure that the deepest idea can be and should be expressed in a simple form either by a word or a picture. And this is an aim he strives to in his art. In reflective light of the modern fine art where you can hardy guess an idea and the form is almost washed out, his works seem to be anachronism.

There are too many people who want to destroy this world, suddenly appeared to be so ugly, at least on the canvas. While he creates a new reality which resembles the prototype by form but absolutely different in its essence. In his paints a man, horse, stone, tree, the sky, the sea are nothing but "eternity", "peace", "faith", "primary unity", "mind" and quite a number of other basic philosophical categories.

The problems of S. Kochkin's art can be illustrated by the world of Indian ecclesiasts that any human activity is senseless if he doesn't think about the nature of absolute values. One becomes a human being when he asks himself: Why am I suffering? Where did I come from? Where do I go to?

It's Sergei's credo which he managed to express with maximum clarity in his work "Subject for initiated". Really, initiated can understand everything and at once-choose your own way in this life.

On the whole Sergei Kochkin's art is characterised by absolute clarity of the idea together with realistic sometimes even deficently realistic form. But it is not realism as we usually understand it. This is, if you like, the art of ideal reality, where the white horse-apropose, it was thought as an answer to K. Petrov-Vodkin's "Red Horse", returns to its native inner world, while it is being left by the best brains, where the black hole seems to be a real threat, where Sokrat's death is interpreted as a deliverance from the disease as "life".

S. Kochkin's pictures are paint in full conformity with the classic European traditions. Inner itrigue and narration, details properly done put them close to Breygel's parables or to edifying works of U. Jogart.

The attention which the master pays to rocks, the sky, the sea and space on the whole make us to remember the brilliant romantic paints of K. D. Fridrikh and inner fullness of his works continues the truth searches of Russian artists: M. Nesterov, M. Vrubel, N. Ge.

The painter applies, first of all, to rather prepared onlooker. It is very difficult to understand completely his "The birth of Venus" or "Memory" if one is not acquainted with the main Eastern philosophical doctrines. But, nevertheless, S. Kochkin's art is not closed for vast spectators, quite reverse, they initiate the desire to comprehend something new, learn it, feel it. And this is a sign of the real art.

Sergei Kochkin.

Born in 1951.
1971-1974 studied design in Art school in Kiev;
1975-1979 studied architecture in Kiev State Institute of Art;
1992 participated in auctions of fine arts in Dysseldorf,
1993 personal exhibition in Kiev.

His canvases are kept in private collections in Western Europe.