Stop Composition

Alexander Dobrovolsky, Stop Composition

Alexander Dobrovolsky graduated from School of Industrial Art in 1985 and joined the Artists Union of Russia in 1992. He has gone on to win multiple awards; including the Mayor’s Award in the City competition of public services and utilities in 1995. He currently lives and works in St. Petersburg and has had his work exhibited in Finland, New York, and California.

The blue skies of the open road are laden with obstacles. The soft dashes of white recreate the effect of being behind a windshield, but with such dizzying abstraction, there is no sense of direction. There’s a stop sign in one direction, an arrow in the other; to the left side are dashes and then opposite of that is what appears to be the front bumper of a car. Stop Composition is the disorientation of a car crash, or the feeling of rolling down the heel, or the panic of being in a strange town. The act of driving is so automatic that we often don’t stop to consider the complex emotions and cognitive function that are experienced as we drive along. Though Dobrovolsky is intentional in his distortion of reality, the subject is straightforward.