Victor Bregeda

Victor Bregeda Виктор Брегеда
File:Bregeda 2009.jpg
Born	Victor Viktorovich Bregeda (1963-07-01) July 1, 1963 Taganrog, Rostov Oblast, RSFSR, USSR (now Russia)
Nationality	Russian
Known for	Painting, Drawing

Victor Viktorovich Bregeda is a Russian visual artist recognized for his meta-realistic style of painting.

Career

After attending art school in Russia, Bregeda developed his personal interpretation of creative art, that put himself in sharp contrast with his academic art training, but gained recognition in local and international contests. In early 2000, Bregada was invited to promote his work in the U.S. After a successful first art show in Hawaii, his art has been gaining steady prominence in the international art scene.

Bregeda has been particularly recognized for his contribution to contemporary Christian art, resulting in the ongoing solo exhibition at the Museum of Biblical Art in Dallas, TX. His best-selling artwork, The Eucharist, became first in the series of paintings representing Christian symbolism. Other pieces include images of the Last Supper, Jesus and the idea of divine love.

Recent museum exhibitions

During April 2014 – present, the Museum of Biblical Art (Dallas), the MBA, has featured a private collection of Victor Bregeda paintings from the early and recent periods. The MBA has a simple mission: to display art with a Biblical theme. Nothing of its size exists in the United States, making it a treasure trove for art enthusiasts. Featured exhibits have included: the Marc Chagall Exhibit, the artworks of John Singer Sargent, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, named Texas Tourism’s Attraction of the Year.

In November–December 2014, Victor Bregeda presented his most recent collection of paintings at the Museum of Russian Art in NJ. Since its founding in 1980, the Museum of Russian Art (MORA) has been paramount to the introduction of Russian art to American audiences. With its core collection largely culled from human rights activist Alexander Glezer’s private holdings, the museum’s collection during its formative years was on a par only with that of Norton Dodge for that time. Throughout the 1980s and early 90s, notable artists first exhibited outside Russia at MoRA including Skate’s 5000 notables, Erik Bulatov, Alexander Kharitonov, Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, Evgeny Kropivnitsky, Lidia Masterkova, Vladimir Nemukhin, Ernst Neizvestny—the canon of late Soviet painting today.

Artistic Style

File:Victor Bregeda.jpg

Victor Bregeda at the opening of his personal exhibition in Taganrog, 2007

Bregeda has been often compared to Salvador Dalí and other masters of the Surrealistic Genre. He positions his work in the meta-realism style with some elements of surrealism. In comparison to meta-realism, surrealism was a much broader cultural movement widely popular in the early and mid 20th century. Meta-realism can be viewed as a later Russian offshoot of surrealism with respect to the imaginative visual style. The key difference is that meta-realism primarily appeals to the superconscious - in Victor’s case strong God’s influence - while surrealism was heavily influenced by subconscious expression.

Meta-realism is a direction in Russian art and poetry that was born in the 1970s to the 1980s. Mikhail Epshtein, who coined it in 1981 and made it public, first used the term. "Meta" means both "through" and "beyond" the reality that we all can see; hence, "meta-realism" is the realism of the hyperphysical nature of things. The main expression of its essence is given through a non-visual metaphor or, according to another Epshtein's term, a "metabola" (rather than hyperbole), that means "transfer" or "transition," opening many dimensions. "Metabola" is different from the symbol or a "visual" metaphor, because it assumes the interosculation of realities.

Themes

• Romance - Bregeda is known for his artistic visions of love and romance. As with all his paintings, the scenes present multidimensional views of storytelling with concealed imagery.
• Contemplations - This is a collection of meta-realistic paintings. They go beyond traditional art styles and often combine the elements of still life, landscape and portraits.
• Christianity - Bregeda's Eucharist series depicts dramatic expressions of Christian faith through collages of surrealistic elements and techniques.
• Psychological Portraits - This collection identifies and exposes different traits of human personality with its surrealistic style and grotesque features.
• Drawings - After many years of painting exclusively on canvas, Bregeda revisited his early techniques when he used to create many kinds of pencil drawings and caricatures.

Personal life

Bregeda was born into a family of painters in 1963 in Taganrog, Russia. He is married to his wife, Olga, and currently lives in Russia, while frequently traveling to the United States to promote his art. Bregeda often spends extended time in Hawaii.

Award-winning artworks

• Cheers to the Victory - Winner of Taganrog Art Contest dedicated to V-Day in Taganrog in May 1995.
• Karma Hat: Fine A Prize for selected works – Fine A Prize for selected works – 9th International Art Photo Contest – May 2003, Japan.
• When Time Stood Still: Fine A Prize for selected works – 10th International Art Photo Contest – November 2003, Japan.
• Rhapsody Of Life: Fine A Prize for selected works – 11th International Art Photo Contest, Art division, internet, Japan in June 2004.
• In Search of Lost Paradise: Fine A Prize for selected works at "The 12th International Art/Photo Contest", Art division, internet, Japan in December 2004.
• Communion & Night Fantasy: the first place at the contest Mysterious Paintings (Russian: Загадочные картины) held by the Nauka i Zhizn magazine in Moscow, October 2005

External links

• The Personal Exhibition of the Russian-U.S. Surrealist Artist Victor Bregeda Opens in Taganrog
• Beyond Surreal: Inside The Work of Victor Bregeda
• Анатолий Калинин Загадочные картины: двоевзоры и троевзоры in "Наука и жизнь", №4, 2005 год