Alexey Lazarev

Alexey Lazarev is a multidisciplinary artist. Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, he has lived and worked in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal since 2012. He holds a BFA from Concordia University and the University of Hertfordshire (UK) and is currently pursuing an MFA in Studio Arts (Print Media) at Concordia, with part of the degree completed at the Glasgow School of Art. His graduate studies are supported by fellowships from SSHRC and FRQ, and he is a member of the Textiles & Materiality cluster of the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture & Technology. Recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the CALQ, Lazarev has exhibited his work in Canada and internationally. He has participated in artist residencies including Pilotenkueche (Leipzig), Centre for Ceramics (Berlin), and Studio Kura (Itoshima, Japan), and has presented his research at conferences such as the Southern Graphics Council International and IMPACT13. Lazarev’s multidisciplinary practice examines queer, migrant, and neurodiverse experiences, including the identity shifts that follow immigration, nostalgia for places that no longer exist, and the difficulty of expressing what resists direct articulation. Working with metal, paper, clay, and found materials, he creates drawings, prints, sculptures, assemblages, and installations that draw on strategies of masking, code-switching, deconstruction and reassembly, and non-linear narrative. Often gravitating toward non-representational forms (while allowing occasional returns to figuration) Lazarev’s work reflects on the complexities of lived experience and ongoing processes of identity transformation.