biography
Almazov was born Nikolai Vorobiov in Yaroslav in 1958. He was a happy, friendly child who worked hard at school and enjoyed chess, sport, and music. He began suffering from depression from the age of twenty and eventually dropped out of medical school. He began to experience periods of intense creative activity in his early thirties and decided to change his name to something “more beautiful and wise”. That was when he began signing his works with the pseudonym Almazov, which means “made of diamond”. He is regularly hospitalised in a psychiatric ward. He has painted numerous portraits of “beautiful women”, including film stars and women he has met, as well as historical characters such as Newton and Van Dyck, which he claims “helps make them good”. He sometimes draws “crystals and cosmic rays” that he has seen. He lives with his parents, occasionally using the walls and windows as supports for his work.
selective bibliography
Back in the U.S.S.R, Figures de l'art brut russe 2, catalogue d'exposition (22/01-05/03/2010), Paris, galerie christian berst, lelivredart, 2010.
Jean-Louis Lanoux et Régis Gayraud (sous la direction de Bruno Decharme), Alexandre Lobanov et l’art brut en Russie, abcd les éditions, 2003.
selective collections
selective press review
- De HLM en USSR authors in animula vagula, January 20th 2010.
- Figures de l'art brut russe authors in Artension, March April 2006.
- Brut russe à la galerie Objet trouvé authors in Libération, March 20 2006.
- Figures de l'art brut russe authors in A nous Paris, March 20 2006.
- Les figures de l'art brut russe authors in Télérama sortir, March 8 2006.
- Figures de l'art brut russe authors in animula vagula, February 22 2006.
- Art brut : l'irréductible authors avec une interview de christian berst in Télérama sortir, February 15 2006.
