From the Republic of Buryatia in Russia, Anatoly Alekseev is an artist and designer with a powerful vision that challenges the conventions of both art and fashion. Now based in St. Petersburg, Alekseev is making waves in the creative world, particularly as the co-founder of the streetwear brand STENO515. Through his work, he captures the raw energy of artistic creativity while engaging deeply with critical societal issues.
Alekseev’s artistic expression is characterized by huge-format paintings that serve as powerful visual commentaries on the destructive behaviors often prevalent in street culture. His art is exploring topics like instability, fragmentation, and anxiety—issues that resonate in contemporary environments. By merging striking visual elements with poignant commentary, Alekseev’s work compels viewers to confront uncomfortable truths.
As an interdisciplinary artist, Alekseev’s practice spans painting, drawing, video, textiles, and object-based media. He emphasizes the interplay of materiality, gesture, and repetition in his projects, treating artistic images as vessels for transient experiences.
“I explore how contemporary environments are perceived and interpreted visually,” he explains, highlighting a keen interest in the distortions and layers present in everyday visual culture.
Alekseev is particularly fascinated by how personal experiences intersect with broader cultural frameworks, allowing him to create works that resonate on multiple levels. His innovative approach not only reshapes our understanding of artistic expression but also pushes the boundaries of contemporary aesthetics. In tandem with his artistic endeavors, Alekseev is developing the project STENOSIS under the STENO515 brand, where fashion, visual art, and critical perspectives converge. This initiative represents a unique fusion of disciplines, reflecting Alekseev’s vision for a more integrated approach to art and fashion.
Through his massive canvases and cutting-edge designs, Anatoly Alekseev is reshaping how we perceive the relationship between art and fashion today. His work invites crucial conversations on the complexities of modern society, positioning him as a significant voice in the contemporary art scene.
KREEP. MEETS ANATOLY ALEKSEEV
What’s the most challenging part of working with different mediums, and how do you decide which one to use for a particular project?
Honestly, there’s nothing really difficult if you know how to work with the material. Most of the time the idea itself suggests the form and how it should look in the end. The medium just continues the message.
Your work often explores themes of instability and anxiety – do you find that your art helps you process your own emotions, or is it more of an observational exercise?
It’s not therapy and not pure observation. It’s more like a fixation, a way of capturing a state. I work with anxiety, instability, deviation as a reality I live in and see around me. When art becomes an object, you can already look at it from the outside. In that sense, the work is both personal and detached at the same time.
Can you tell us about your experience working with the project STENOSIS? How do you see it evolving in the future?
STENOSIS for me is a continuation of my artistic practice, just in a different field. STENOSIS is a team, friends, we all look in the same direction, that’s why we work together. I started it with my friend and designer, SHULYA, and that’s a whole separate story. In STENOSIS projects you’ll find the same themes, the same graphics, the same symbols as in my artworks. I see its development as something that keeps growing into a wider and deeper statement, but mostly it’s about creativity and a community of people, artists, designers, musicians, united by one way of seeing the world.
How do you think the mix of personal experience and cultural frameworks influences your work, and do you think this is something that resonates with your audience?
My work is directly built on personal experience, but it always goes through cultural codes. Internet culture and industrial environment are the language I use to build ideas. I think this is what creates a response from the audience, because people recognize familiar visual codes but see them in an unusual context.
What’s been the most surprising or unexpected experience in your artistic journey so far, and how did it shape your approach to your work?
The most unexpected thing for me was how naturally my visual images started to live outside the canvas, in clothes, objects, design. When we just started STENOSIS, it worked exactly like that, my drawings appeared on clothes, made by hand. I realized that my visual language can exist in different environments without losing its integrity. Some people don’t separate what they do, but for me design is design, art is art, contexts matter. But anyway, it’s all one field of expression, one thread running through art, design, social media. Even a reel can be art, you know.
Follow ANATOLY ALEXEEV HERE
Follow ANATOLY ALEXEEV HERE
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