Surreal Art of Vladimir Kush

Vladimir Kush' is a Russian born painter, who is identified with the metaphorical realism movement.

Born in 1965 in Moscow, he learned to draw at home and started attending an art school at the age of 7. He entered the Moscow art institute at 17, and when he went for his mandatory two years of military service at 18 was soon set to painting murals and canvases rather than regular infantry duties.

Bored with the Cézanne-style painting his art school concentrated on, Kush switched to surreal images as a teenager; he experimented with different styles of impressionism after seeing a book of Salvador Dalí's work in the late 1980s but it didn't appeal because shape was lost in the style. Strongly influenced by his father (a scientist), he believes that realistic paintings show the artist's professional skill and draw the viewer in so that they accept the impossible images enough to see the metaphors in them and explore the different layers of meaning.

In 1990 he showed works in Germany together with two other Russian artists; he visited Los Angeles for a show and stayed in the United States.