Vladimir Taiger’s painting “Barracuda” (1975) created a real controversy about the nature and place of hyperrealism in our art of that time. Even later, this painting has not lacked any serious treatment of hyperrealism.
Modestly titled “Pictures”, the Vabadus Gallery exhibition is an overview exhibition: the artist’s paintings and graphics stand out for their strong plot, compositional detail and technical precision, and open up the artist’s sensitive world. In his intaglio printing technique (etching and aquatint) influenced by hyperrealism, the main motifs of his graphic pages are animals, female figures, objects (still life), they are dominated by gloom and mystical light. The precise imagery is combined with a fantasy world that creates a dreamlike, yet acutely awake feeling in the viewer. In addition to gravure printing, Taiger has used the silk-screen printing technique, in which he has depicted mainly architecture and interiors. Fragments of the everyday life of the past century are brought to the viewer with works with laconic color based on photographs.
The artist has also remained faithful to hyperrealism in his paintings: his paintings are characterized by camera-like focusing and meticulous technical precision. Although in so many paintings the photo-realistic neutrality, even the coldness, has been replaced by a much more romantic tone.
