As the world has been eagerly watching Olympians compete in Sochi, Russia for gold medals and accolades alike, Erarta Galleries New York has been featuring six specially selected Olympic artists for their current exhibition. The show is appropriately titled after the Sochi Olympics Slogan: Hot. Cool. Erarta Art. Yours. Erarta’s Global Galleries director and exhibition curator, Meesha Chang, positioned the artists Anatoly Basin, Aleksandr Korolev, Pavel Belyaev, Andrey Chezhin, Vladimir Aksenov and Aleksandr Podobed as some of Erarta`s top competitors of the Russian contemporary art scene at the height of the Olympic momentum.

The play of the official Olympic slogan is defined as Hot. representing the heated passion brought to the exhibition and works by the artists, Cool. is representing the contemporary culture engaged by Erarta both globally and in New York, and Yours. lends to the Erarta mission of continually promoting contemporary art and finding the perfect works to fit our collectors.

During the exhibition opening, Erarta Galleries New York designed an unforgettable experience inviting partners like Molecular Water, Vendome and Equinox to participate. Molecular water quenched the guest`s creative thirst with their unique product. Vendome macaroons brought their branded Olympic and Erarta colored circular sweets and Equinox brought their Power Pilates team who choreographed a performance piece just for the event as well as their Personal Trainers who accompanied ready to sculpt the guests.

The paintings boasted inspiring slogans like: Make each day your masterpiece or You only live once. Visitors were given gold stickers to award their gold medal to their winning artwork. The competition is ongoing and will end at the close of the Sochi Winter Olympics and can be seen on various Erarta social media platforms.

Artist Andrey Chezhin is widely known for his photographic illusions, or Tromp l'oeil, and is exhibiting precious first edition silkscreen prints of his series. St. Petersburg, Venice, New York, Paris and Washington D.C.. Each image is a repetition of an iconic structure from each destination. Viewers are transported through Chezhin's photographs and enter an alternate reality with an intrinsic sense of place in surrealist fashion. His technique captures the unpredictable, an alchemist’s manipulation, by using a photographic processes in order to create a "new reality" within one negative. Internationally known and recognized for his individual style, Chezhin shows work under the Sochi Olympic schematic as the cities he depicts represent nations with competing participants in the Winter games.

Another perspective reflective of the Olympic games, artists Anatoly Basin and Aleksandr Korolev focus to convey performative characteristics through the female figures. As the paintings perform motion through their brush strokes, cool color fields and contour, the viewer is both energized by Korolevs dynamic dimension or soothed by the poetry of Basins signature style of painting “ Now I have come here with expensive colors, the most expensive colors in the world, and I’m going to use them very carefully as there is already a layer on each canvas. I am painting with my hands.”

The paintings of Aleksandr Korolev are described by the artist: “the picture happens without interventions and are always engaged in one strong, vigorous motion”. Korolev pictures female bodies in concise and sharp lines and his expertise of the human shape due to his great experience in sculptural work is visible in his paintings.

The works of Pavel Belyaev, Vladimir Aksenov and Aleksandr Podobed are showing more abstract shapes. Capturing scenes of landscape and could be interpreted as an ode to the nature that the artist’s draws often inspiration from.

The collection of works functions to offer the guests a vivid artistic experience and different perspectives of a creative Olympic season. The confluence of visual culture and Sochi Olympic momentum aims to invigorate and inspire New York with a fresh perspective of contemporary Russian culture.