Alexandr Zaikin

Alexander Zaikin was born on 7 May 1979 in Chișinău, into a family of artists: his father, Viktor Zaikin (1961–2017), was a musician, writer, and illustrator, while his mother, Stella Marinescu, worked at the Museum of Folk Art. In 1994, he graduated from art school and entered the Art Lyceum the same year, enrolling in the monumental painting department under Yuri Evgenievich Puzdrovsky. He completed his studies with a bachelor's degree. In 1997, he was admitted to the State Academy of Arts, majoring in Decorative and Applied Arts with a focus on ceramics. In 1998, he met artists and curators from the Centre for Contemporary Art in Chișinău (KSAAK), which significantly shifted the direction of his artistic work. From that moment on, he moved away from traditional techniques for an extended period. In 1999, he travelled to Strasbourg to represent his country at the Biennale of Contemporary Art. The following year, he was invited to participate in the Contemporary Art Biennale in Cetinje. His first solo exhibition took place in Chișinău in 2000. In 2001, he moved to Moscow and worked as an exhibition technician in a contemporary art gallery until 2003. There, he met Professor Dmitry Uvarov from the Kosygin University, who encouraged him to enter postgraduate studies in fashion design. Alexander began working on a thesis titled "Contemporary Art in Fashion Design". Although the work remained unfinished, the experience opened the door to the fashion world, and in 2003 he was invited to join Giorgio Armani as a visual artist. Since then, he has specialised in designing store interiors and window displays for luxury boutiques. The 2014 financial crisis marked a turning point: with the collapse of the luxury market in Russia, Alexander left Montblanc and began developing his own projects, including small-scale forms, park sculptures, and outdoor epoxy-resin paintings. He travelled to China in search of production solutions, but the project failed to gain support from city authorities, and his art objects did not find a place in the urban environment. With the birth of his children, Alexander developed a strong interest in education and became an ambassador of the Reggio Emilia approach in Russia—an educational philosophy centred on nurturing children's creativity. He wrote his own programme, which was later adopted as a professional development course for Russian educators. In parallel, he taught art at IB international schools, where project-based learning reflects many of the Reggio approach’s principles. In 2023, Alexander returned to easel painting. His current works are large, minimalist canvases, where vivid, bold forms depict everyday scenes. Surrounded by constant information noise and overwhelmed by meaningless contexts, he aims to reduce each subject to its purest form and colour. This contrast allows the core idea to emerge powerfully against the backdrop of chaos and fragmented micro-narratives. These micro-narratives, in his view, have fractured public discourse in favour of a passive collective unconscious. Alexander’s consciousness now demands a new monumentality—one that resists the tyranny of the meaningless and lays a foundation for generating new meaning.

1999 (Strasboug) at the Biennale of Contemporary Art. 1999 Contemporary Art Biennale in Cetinje. 2000 Solo exhibition took place in Chișinău 2003 Giorgio Armani (visual artist) 2023 BRICS Exhibition (Moscow, Russia)

Chisinau (Moldova) Art Lyceum - 1994 State Academy of Arts - 1997