Denis Saunin belongs to the new wave of postmodern artists. They mostly paint in a figurative manner, using their academic painting skills to solve abstract metaphysical tasks, seeking to convey special states of consciousness and achieve a fundamental balance. Some critics label Denis Saunin as a metaphysical realist. Artist Anna Scheglova insists that Saunin creates ‘a parallel, mirror world independent of any time conventions, in which the earthly seamlessly blends with the unearthly: mountains and oceans touch the low-hanging celestial bodies, be it the Moon, a planet, or a whole planetary alignment. The customary and the commonplace sit comfortably alongside the inconceivable and the unknown. The artist’s inner world seems to project itself over the world outside, merging with it and evoking a new reality...’ It is interesting how the artist expresses the abstract through the concrete, and vice versa.

Denis Saunin was born in an artist’s family in the Russian Far East. It is this region that shaped his uniquely personal feeling of emptiness and silence of vast expanses and inner quietude, while visions of the Pacific coast calibrated the broad scale of his world perception. The artist’s meditative, at times widely imaginative paintings immerse the viewer in an atmosphere of epic solitude.

Space plays a special role in Denis Saunin’s life: it becomes the subject of artistic exploration in the artist’s studio and physically supports him when he soars over the Baltic sea on his paraglider — quite literally making him a flying artist. The Abstract and Concrete exhibition at Erarta Museum gives us a snapshot of his imaginary and real flights.