Ivan Korshunov

Ivan Korshunov was born in 1983 in Moscow. He completed his studies in 2003 at the Institute of Contemporary Art founded by Joseph Bakstein, and in 2007 at the Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute. He is a member of the Moscow Union of Artists and holds a PhD in art history, and has held scholarships from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation in 2007–2008, 2015 and 2017.

Korshunov's approach to hyperrealism rests on the old three-layer oil painting technique. He believes this method matches the philosophy of his work: a synthesis of artistic tradition within the context of contemporary reality. He works in a metamodern manner, using photography as the ground for his paintings, and draws deep subjects from biblical narrative into his own experience. The juxtaposition creates a striking play between the historical and the present, and invites the viewer to explore the border between the real and the imagined.

The artist has received a diploma from the Ministry of Culture of Russia, an acknowledgement from the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation and two commendations from the Russian Academy of Arts. He took second prize at the IV All-Russian Pavel Tretyakov Competition of Young Artists, held at the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and his work was shortlisted for the All-Russian UNTITLED PRIZE 2018. He took part in the V and VII Moscow Biennale of Young Art.

Since 2019 Ivan Korshunov has been listed among the Top 100 recognised artists in Russia by InArt, and holds a place in the ARTEEX list of Best Contemporary Artists in Russia. His works are in private collections in Russia, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Latvia and England, as well as in the State Russian Museum, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum, the Ploshchad Mira Art Museum in Krasnoyarsk, the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, the F. A. Kovalenko Krasnodar Regional Art Museum, the State Art Museum of Novosibirsk and the National Museum of China in Beijing. His exhibition projects continue at galleries including Fine Art (Moscow), Orleansky Gallery (Amsterdam) and Galerie Sonia Monti (Paris).

Ivan Korshunov lives and works in Moscow, where his art keeps dissolving the boundary between tradition and modernity.

Korshunov's artistic philosophy turns on the deep introspection that the nature of art demands. He sees the artist as a master, exercising a prophetic illumination and drawing from the enigmatic realms of the noosphere. His reflections point to the elusive essence of art, one that historians and sociologists often overlook. Whatever genre or strategy an artist chooses, Korshunov insists, the process remains profoundly personal and intimate. In his search for the sacred within the everyday, he challenges the conventional readings of familiar narratives; his art becomes a way of contemplating how closely reality and the ethereal are woven together, and it leaves the viewer with a lingering sense of the enigmatic.