Sergey Balovin


1984 Voronezh, Russia

Balovin

Sergey Balovin was born in Voronezh – Western Russia. He started studying fine arts while still very young and graduated in 1996 from Voronezh State School of Fine Arts. When turning 17 years old, he started teaching painting and academical drawing at Voronezh School of Architecture and Design. Sergey Balovin is a self-taught artist influenced by his early encounters with various French, German and Belgian artists.

From 2008 to 2010, he curated the « Petit » project with Louise Morin which featured a dozen of artists from around the world. Each artist had the opportunity to give his or her point of view on what « mobility » means nowadays. More than a hundred pieces were placed in a symbolic suitcase to represent « contraband art » that can cross country borders.

In 2009 Sergey Balovin presents his first solo exhibition in China and decides to move to Shanghai. He soon realizes his focus was more on the consumer’s demand than his own artistic vision. Taking a radical decision, he ceases sales and destroys his entire oil landscape exhibition with a bulldozer (Euthanasia project).

To escape from the conventional application of monetary value to art, he launches an art project that sees him drawing portraits in exchange for useful gifts : In Kind Exchange. The project meets with great success worldwide and allows him to travel, be hosted and fed in 36 different countries. To date, more than 6000 portraits have been painted and the same number of gifts received.

Projects

2012

"In Kind Exchange", continuous project until 2015, 42 countries