Bringing colourful horses and happiness wherever they go
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From Russia with love: Lavrenty Repin and Garry Zooh and Al Ameen students rejoice after transforming their classroom. Pix by Amila Gamage
Al Ameen Central College in Pannala has been given a Slavic facelift. The classroom walls are alive with colourful horses. The two artists add finishing touches to the murals as students proffer eager help. They have managed to bring cheerfulness and something of the wild freedom of the Russian steppes into the once gloomy classrooms.
The two artists form a study in contrast: tall, lanky Lavrenty Repin with a mane of blonde hair and the older Garry Zooh: chubby, rubicund, cheerful with a kind Father Christmas glint in his eyes. The two Russians have a gap of some 25 years between them, but still make a good pair.
Garry has christened his and Lavrenty’s project of going around the world creating murals ‘Art Subbotnik’. ‘Subbotnik Day’ in Russia is when people spring clean homes or work places. Garry hopes to inspire people to make their spaces more beautiful. So far, he has spread the message in Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Nepal, Egypt, Gabon and the Belarus.
Shy smiles all round as students share a light moment with Lavrenty Repin
The school at Pannala was the last of a nine-day trip when they stamped their imprint on the country’s face, choosing places at whim: large wall paintings in Vauxhall Street and Galle Fort to a secret painting under a bridge at remote Batathota junction.
But why exclusively horses? Larry says that the meaning of the horses depends on who is viewing them, as art is about ‘raising questions and not giving answers’, but horses are an ancient symbol, even beyond history and civilization onto Lascaux and other primitive cave drawings. “The horse is a symbol of unity between nature and man. It is something everyone can understand- whatever culture you are from, and doesn’t give a feeling of anger or any negative feeling.”
However no two horses are the same. They may come in blue, red, or yellow, and resemble squirrels, cats or dogs- each of them unique but all friendly.
A red horse in the making with a little help from Garry Zooh
Warming into the subject, it is easy to see why Garry and Lavrenty are so passionate about street art. It is immensely powerful, unmistakably dominating the urbanscapes, and, as Lavrenty points out, opening up art for everyone- not only those privileged enough to patronize galleries. “Art is For Everyone,” says Garry in the guise of a motto, and adds, ‘Beauty Unites.’
Garry remembers the magical moment when ‘art’ ceased to be something mundane for him. As a young boy at the Pushkin Museum for Modern Art, he was hypnotized by Matisse’s painting of Red Fish, and stared at it for two days. “After that I began to see colours and feel them with my whole body. And after a few months I began to paint. Matisse gave birth to colour in me.”
Lavrenty adds wistfully that if everyone was a performance artist, the world would be a very different place.