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Born in 1957 in the city of Alma-Ata. He graduated from the Architectural Faculty of Novosibirsk Engineering and Construction Institute. Worked as an architect at designing institutions in Moscow and Almaty. From 1993 has been teaching painting at the Designing Department of the Kazakh State Architecture and Construction Academy. Member of the Architects Union of Kazakhstan since 1987. Took part in some expeditions to the Himalayas and to Central Tian Shan. Awarded diplomas of the IV and V International Mountain and Adventurous Films for his exhibition and artistic design of the festival (2001-2002, in Moscow). Awarded diplomas from the authorities in Moscow for his personal exhibitions: at the city hall during the International Tourism Day, 2001; and in the hall of Christ Savior Cathedral Church, 2002.
Andrei Starkov, who has a passion for mountain-climbing, successively and multidimensional realizes in his creative work themes on mountains, proving the full authority of their existence in the "table of ranks" of modern art: captivating in its grandeur, beauty and magical rough or on the contrary very small scenery. The artist, of late pays greater attention of late to original portraits of "stones".
Seeming simple, the natural and even spontaneous randomness in modeling the volumes and colour texture reflects the independence and power of nature during moments of natural cataclysms. The technique of improvisation appears differently in the series Gardens, which is preserved by the light-airy water-colour, anticipated in this work. The laws of the life of nature - of something big in a small thing - attracts the artist. He enthusiastically ponders over the priorities of the existence of tectonic processes. This is what he tries to follow in his manner and principle of transmitting nature, when the hand voluntarily follows the waving brush. A free stroke, running colours, create a spot whose form is like slope gutters, but depends also on the feelings of the artist just as the way the life of a stone on the slope depends on the sum of many factors protracted in time.
Multi-version rules remain the topic of structural compositions, which is new to connoisseurs of the creative works of A. Starkov. In them, mountains and stones are represented in the form of peculiar geometrical adjusted "slices". They are organized in series of geometrical forms (pyramids, ovals, spheres, cones, trapezium). Include in the scenery, they form an abstract system of figurative and formal symbols of natural forms and their logical fundamental principle.

Andrey Starkov