Biography

Vladimir Gruzdev was born in 1951 in St. Petersburg (Leningrad). Upon graduation from Leningrad Aircraft Instrumentation College in 1974 he obtained a degree in electronic engineering. In the years that followed, scientific work was his primary occupation while painting remained a deep personal pursuit. Participation in underground art exhibitions held in private apartments was the only outlet for independent artists at a time when socialist realism was the sole permitted form of art in the USSR. In 1989, alongside Perestroika, Vladimir found the strength to leave his career and become a full-time artist.

1995 — Lectured at the University of South Florida alongside Peter Tush, curator of the Salvador Dali Museum.

1997 — Workshop with leading American transpersonal psychologists, Saybrook Institute (Stanley Krippner and others).

2000 — Laureate, EXPO-2000 project competition, Hannover, Germany (Kinetic Installation).

2001 — Contributed to the TV series Metaphysics of St. Petersburg.

2003 — Published a book presenting an original theory of colour.

2003, 2004 — Colour theory presented at the Sixth and Seventh International Congresses in Philosophy and Culture, UNESCO / Russian Academy of Science, St. Petersburg.

2007 — Founded the newspaper gallery "Chance-Gallery."

2008 — Workshop The Art of Painting as Psychotechnology, Seventh International Conference of Transpersonal Psychology.

2010 — Lecture course Psychology and Painting, Art-school "Artery."

Works held in the State Museum of History of St. Petersburg and in galleries and private collections worldwide. Paintings illustrate 21 books in the Best Psychotechnologies of the World series (Prime Evroznak / AST, 2006–2008). A chapter dedicated by A. S. Shaligin in The Famous Artists of St. Petersburg (2004; 2nd ed. 2011). Since 1989, over 80 group exhibitions internationally.

Selected Group Exhibitions

2015 — Auctions #22 & #23, Auction House "Len-Sovet," Angleterre Hotel, St. Petersburg

2015 — Golden Age of Russian Literature, Moscow · New York · Washington

2013 — Sixth Auction "Russian Seasons," Neva-Antique, St. Petersburg

2010 — St. George's Day, State Museum of Folk Drawings, Moscow

2009 — City, Familiar for Tears…, K Gallery, St. Petersburg

2008 — St. George in Contemporary Art, State Museum of History of St. Petersburg

2004 — Touch Me, Broadway Gallery, New York

2000–2003 — Spiritual Mission, 5 exhibitions, State Ethnography Museum, St. Petersburg

1992 — Light of all the World, Central Exhibition Hall "Manege," Moscow

1991 — Art Hamburg 91, Hamburg Messe, Germany

Individual Exhibitions

2016 — Immersion into Abstract, Gallery Artlot24, St. Petersburg

2010 — Landscape: Between the East and the West, Gallery National Center, St. Petersburg

2006 — Apocrypha, Gallery National Center, St. Petersburg

1999 — Retrospection, Palitra Gallery, St. Petersburg

1999 — Music of Colours, Commercial Banks Association, St. Petersburg

1998 — Petrography Phenomenon, Mikhailovsky Manege, St. Petersburg

1997 — Another Reality, Fyodor Dostoyevsky Museum, St. Petersburg

1995 — Magic Abstractionism, Palitra Gallery, St. Petersburg

1995 — Abstract Surrealism, Gallery "At 145," St. Petersburg, Florida, USA