Grigory P.was born in Kostroma. He worked as a firefighter and photographer in the fire department. He began painting in 1986, first using tempera, then shifting to oil. Kusochkin’s art was born in the years of abundant freedom and democracy in the second half of the 1980s, it came out of the same bosom of urban culture that ditties (chastushki) and jokes. It is not by chance that the artist’s first works echoed the stories of oral folklore. The artist himself often wrote poems on the back of his joking pictures.
From an artistic point of view, Kusochkin’s works made in tempera captivate with their dynamism and the freedom of composition, it’s not accidental that many of his characters simply fly through the air. Decorative colourfulness, festive gaiety, sometimes turning almost into obscenity, make Kusochkin’s pictures easy to perceive due to their entertaining value. Nevertheless, this is rather a serious artist, as he interprets the archetypes of traditional culture in his own way. Unlike other naive artists, who were very serious, but we have a smile looking at their works, Kusochkin’s intentions was to make his audience laugh. Ksenia Bohemskaya
