*Talking about art, Aron Zinshtein always recalls children's drawings. Such references reveal the nature of his own gift and formulate his general credo. Aron Zinshtein – a mature master and a wise man - has remained a child. Very few people manage to preserve the childhood perception of life after they acquire experience and gain sophisticated professional skills. Very few people remain capable of being amazed and excited. And even fewer of them are able of making daily discoveries and believing in their fantasies. In fact, Zinshtein's works connote stylistically with children's art. But this has nothing to do either with banal imitations or reflexive «appropriation», however fashionable the latter may be nowadays. His works are childish due to the coincidence of vision.

In terms of typology, Zinshtein's art belongs to the broad expressionist trend determinative for the 20th century's art. As a notion, expressionism is not merely a label of a given art movement. Rather, it defines the type of artist's consciousness and plastic temperament. Features of the expressionist temperament are evident in Zinshtein's works. He privileges expression over figurative image and actively deforms reality. He has uncontainable imagination. His paintings are «loud», elemental, vivacious, and spontaneous. His brushstroke is dashing and vibratory, his color is always reinforced and emotionally charged; his intonation is utterly sincere and open. In fact, German expressionism in general and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Emil Nolde, in particular, are among Zinshtein's most significant predilections in art. However, despite their perfect expressionist lexicon, Zinshtein's works show a totally different tonality of perception that can be easily ascribed to impressionism.

Zinshtein's oeuvre consists of a vast number of works - files of etchings and linocuts, hundreds of canvases and no less than a thousand gouaches of various sizes. Such efficiency can partly be explained by Zinshtein's excitable temperament, vivacity of his perception and rapidity of his painting. In fact, Aron works very quickly trying to accomplish his plan outright, with no later corrections. It is more important for him to render the feeling and preserve integrity of the current emotional state. In this sense, Zinshtein's enormous productivity is determined by the very essence of his figurative conception. What he wants to depict is «the mass of life». Zinshtein's art seems to be so inadvertent in its presentation of the up-to-the-minute situations that it may well be characterized as the instantaneous painting.

Aron Zinshtein's biography looks quite safe on paper: graduated from a college and then from the esteemed Mukhina Art Academy, Russia. He is a member of the Artists’ Association, has a formidable list of solo and international exhibitions. But Aron's life was not as cloudless, as it might seem. In the fall of 1982 Zinshtein was stigmatized for formalistic distortion of true life and the «chagallism» unacceptable for a Soviet artist. He was not admitted to the Artists’ Association. But over the years Aron stubbornly kept on submitting his applications. This epic ended only in 1988. Today this aspiration to join the organization that does not accept you as an artist may seem strange. The reason was that the membership gave an opportunity to leave all other jobs (Zinshtein had to work as an interior designer for a long time) and to focus solely on art. Underground existence was not acceptable for many artists not because they lacked courage. In early 80s this bold choice involved politics and professional losses. Zinshtein was not the only one who was looking for the ways of preserving his artistic dignity outside the underground milieu.

Today it seems that Aron tries to have revenge for the years of half-legal existence. He has a record of more than 32 personal and 25 group exhibitions in Russia, Europe, and USA. His works are owned by the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg, Fyodor Dostoevsky Museum in St. Petersburg, Russian National Library in St. Petersburg, Kiev Museum of Russian Art, Bristol Museum (UK) and private collectors in Russia, Germany, USA, France, UK, Italy, Japan, and Israel. 

No doubt, his extrovert art needs the audience!

*Excerpts from the article by Irina Karasik, Ph.D. (published in the book “Aron Zinshtein, an artist”). Irina is a renowned curator and scholar, Senior Art Historian of the Department of New Trends in Art at the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; member of the International Association of Art Critics; author of numerous publications on the history of Russian avant-guard and contemporary art.