Andrej Krementschouk

No Direction Home

November 3 - 27, 2011

In his color series "No Direction Home," Germany-based artist Andrej Krementschouk portrays his Russian homeland, a country where he no longer feels at home. In crisp, color-saturated images, Kremetschouk seeks evidence of emotional rootedness and cultural identity in a place that is not quite the same as he remembers:

"I have to share something about this modest place that no one knows, something about me. . . My house. I'm five years old. My grandfather, my grandmother and I are walking along a forest path that leads to our village. It's hot. In a forest glade near the river my grandmother lays out some newspaper: boiled eggs, salt, slightly salty pickles, and dragonflies in the shimmering air."

Boris Mikhailov, Ukrainian photographer and mentor to Krementschouk, describes the series: "It is a very subtle book about Russia, a work full of romanticism and sadness for the country's fate. In parts it is very cinematic, disturbing even, and in terms of their vivid depiction of pain the images are reminiscent of Robert Frank."

Andrej Krementschouk was born in 1973 in Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod), Russia. His varied career includes a completed apprenticeship as a restorer of icons and metal objets d'art, a diploma degree as chorus director, work as a freelance jeweler and restorer of icons, and a diploma degree in Communication Design with a focus in photography. "No Direction Home" was chosen as a winner of the competition "Good Prospects - Young German Photography 2007/8," and was subsequently published as a monograph with the same name by Kehrer Verlag in 2009. From 2009 to 2011, Krementschouk was a member of the Ostkreuz photographic agency, Berlin. He currently lives and works on Leipzig, Germany, and has recently completed a photographic project titled "Chernobyl Zone."