Diana Keys, Frescoe decorated interior

pictures are screenprints 

from the first video in the documentation

Above picture depicts Diana Keys' sitting room in the house where she lived until her death. She rented this house from the municipal housing company of Hemel Hempstead, a town of some 80.000 inhabitants in the United Kingdom, just north-west of London.

Like other rooms in the house, the walls and the ceiling of this room have been decorated with frescoes she created single-handedly.

Life and works

Diana Keys (1947-2018) began this project around 1977 as a therapy to curb mental health problems she experienced.

Using her own fingers in stead of brushes, she painted colorful, naturalistic scenes, depicting in particular many horses, but also other animals such as panthers, tigers and birds. And then she also depicted characters such as young ladies, saints and angels. A life-size mermaid is depicted on the wall of the bathroom.

On the whole, Diana Keys' frescoes decorated interior got a quiet, peace-loving appearance.

In the many decades that she was painting, she remained out of publicity, but in late 2017 she came out with her project, which led to a one-off avalanche of publicity with photographs and articles in a variety of English news media (Daily Mail, BBC, The Mirror and many more).

In interviews Diana has said that she wanted to end her project now she is seventy years old.

Living in a rented house, she also said that she realized that all walls and ceilings might be whitened if she no longer lives there.

Diana Keys passed away on March 23, 2018.

It is not known whether the murals in the rented flat still exist or meanwhile have been removed.

To my knowledge Diana Keys' art environment so far has not yet been documented in any British medium in the field of outsider art.

Documentation
As said this art environment in November 2017 got a lot of publicity in news media in the United Kingdom, all with almost the same descriptions and photographs.So just one referral will do:

* Article (November 10, 2017) in Mail Online

Video
* Video by Fresh News Channel (1'38", YouTube, November 10, 2017)

 

Diana Keys

Frescoe decorated interior

Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
it is not known whether the murals in the rented flat still exist

first published April 2018, last revised May 2019

Ivan Khristenko, Музей "Край Долгоруковский" / Museum "Krai Dolgorukovsky",

this picture and the next five (2017) 
from Livejournal courtesy of Vadim Razumov 

 Although the building pictured above has a pleasant appearance, at first sight there is nothing special about it, but looking at the more detailed photo below, one can see that this building is rather special, if only because of the way the facade has been decorated.

This is the facade of a museum in the village of Dolgorukovo, Russia, some 425 kilometers south of Moscow.

This museum has the rather unique feature that -apart from the hull of the building- all parts, structures and decorations have been made single-handedly by its director, Ivan Aleksandrovich Khristenko.

Life and works

Nothing initially indicated that Ivan Khristenko (1930-2012) would become director of a museum. He was born in the Prikhidki village in the Poltava region (currently part of Ukraine),  graduated in 1957 in law at the Moscow State University and became a successful lawyer, first practicing in Moscow, then in the Ryazan region and eventually in the Lipetsk region.

Khristenko was a convinced communist and he was actively involved in committees and organizations in Lipetsk affiliated with the communist party, like he was a correspondent of the newspaper Path to Communism and a teacher of the district committee of the CPSU.

tower on the premises of the museum

So when in the mid 1960s the plan arose to create a museum dedicated to the history of Dolgorukovo, where Khristenko lived, he became involved. The museum was formally established on October 14, 1967.

Khristenko was appointed as its director, but since the museum initially was located in just one room of the local CPSU, this in the beginning probably was an activity as volunteer.

In 1979 a building belonging to the CPSU with four rooms and an outside space of 2500 m² (10890 sq ft) was allocated as a new, more spacious housing for the museum and probably this was the moment when Khristenko began to devote himself full time to the further substantive and spacial expansion of the museum.

a bust of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

In terms of design of the space, these developments got a distinctive signature, incomparable with those of other museums. Khristenko began to fill the outdoor space with self-made sculptures and structures, creations he built up with the aid of cement and all kinds of surplus material found on the dump. The interior got all kinds of decorations, often made from paper mache, wall paper, styrofoam and other cheap available (waste) material.

In doing so, it came to a tremendous explosion of creativity, resulting in numerous works of art being added to both the interior and the exterior which in this way together were transformed into an art environment.

left in the picture a scene with

Gorbatsjov and Jeltsin

The history of Dolgorukovo was placed in a broad context and so there were sculptures of important persons in Russian political history, such as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the founder of the USSR, Michael Gorbatsjov, the last president of the USSR and Boris Jeltsin, the first president of the Russian Federation.

Prince Dolgorukovo 

The village of Dolgorukovo in former times was property of the Dolgorukovo family. When in 1896 a railway was built, the station was named after the former owners of the village and so the museum also pays attention to this particular relation, as evidenced by, among others, the sculpture above that depicts the founder of the village, Prince Yu.V. Dolgorukovo.

in memory of Russia's estates

Khristenko's interest in the Russian past is also reflected in the attention he paid to country estates. This can be seen in particular with regard to the (in Soviet times destroyed) estate of the brothers Zhemchuzhnikov.

a portrait of Kozma Prutkov
this picture and the next four (early 2018) 

courtesy of Evgenia Gorlova

The brothers Zhemchuzhnikov became especially known for the fictional personality Kozma Prutkov they created together with A.K. Tolstoj. In the middle of the 19th century Prutkov published numerous publications under this pseudonym. Especially his aphorism became well known.

One room of the museum features the brothers Zhemchuzhnikov and Prutkov's aphorisms appear on its walls. Although Prutkov did not exist, the museum just as well has a portrait of him and on the tower in the outdoor space he is -immortalized in a sculpture- looking at the spot where the estate once was located.

The interior of the museum includes 11 rooms and they all have been exuberantly decorated with pillars crowned with friezes, wall decorations, inscriptions or colorful paper mache items.

In some rooms just one specific theme is addressed, like there is room dedicated to the Great Patriotic War. Dolgorukovo was in a war zone and in the early years of the museum inhabitants of the village came donating pieces of war material, found in the area.

Another room is dedicated to the Soviet Five-Year Plans.

In July 2000, when Khrishtenko approached the age of 70, he transferred the management of the museum to his daughter Nadezhda Ivanovna Kryukova. Although over the years his health had declined, he continued his activities for the museum as an employee and so he remained involved in its policy.

Ivan Khristenko died in 2012.

The museum had as small professional staff, financed by the regional government. On average it was visited yearly by around 4000 people, who didn't have to pay an entrance fee.

The financial situation of the museum became problematic, especially because there were no means to carry out maintenance. Khrishtenko never wanted to accept eventual contributions from funds or other private parties, because in his opinion the financial support should come from the central government. However, Moscow did not respond to requests on this matter.

The museum was closed in 2019 because of technical problems.

An investigation into the constructional situation

In September 2020, the inspectorate of the Ministry of Culture and Art of the Lipetsk region visited the museum to assess the situation. It was noted that some technical problems needed to be solved, such as renewal of the electric lines and improving the accessibility for visitors with limited mobility.

Thanks to the regional authorities and the director of the Lipetsk Regional Museum of Local Lore, Evgenia Smelova, the technical problems could be solved and the museum was reopened at the end of October 2020. 

A commemorative plaque was unveiled in honor of Ivan Khristenko and the museum's 55th anniversary was celebrated.

The museum in the field of art environments

People who visited the museum often said that it offered surrealistic or modern art. Since the phenomenon art environment in Russia is not very well known, it is not obvious that Russian researchers rank the museum within this conceptual framework, which elsewhere in Europe is gradually receiving more attention, accompanied by a growing appreciation for the encountered artworks.

From the perspective of the field of art environments the museum is a unique creation, comparable with some of the most important sites in France, Spain or Italy. It would be regrettable if this museum in the (near) future would cease to exist or would be "normalized".

Documentation

* Article (October 2010) by AAUUMM on LiveInternet with information about and pictures of the site as it was in 2010

* Article (May 2011) in newspaper Gorad48 with a description of Khristenko's personality

* Article (June 2012) in regional website Lipetskmedia

* Article (December 2017) by Vadim Razumov, also with a series of photographs on LiveInternet

* Article (September 2020) in newspaper Gorad48 about the findings of the Inspection of the Ministry of Culture and Art of the Lipetsk region  

Videos
* Video (January 2013) by regional television NTV (can not be embedded here)
* Video (June 2015) by Evgeny Sokolsky (YouTube, 9'53"), with Ivan Khristenko presenting the site

first published April 2018, last revised May 2022

Ivan Khristenko

Museum "Krai Dolgorukovsky"

Lihachova Street 24

Dolgorukovo, Lipetsk region, Russia 
awaiting renovation, the Museum is closed
the museum is located in the center of the village, not far from the station

Valery Ermakov, Скульпту а саду та інтер'єру з картинами та скульптурами / Sculpture garden and interior with paintings and sculptures

pictures and video screenshots published here 

with permission of the website Ukrainer.net

In the field of art environments, it happens occasionally that for years a site is only known to the nearest neighbors and remains unnoticed by the general public. And then it can happen that at some moment a creation comes in the range of the radar, as with this art environment in Ukraine.

ensemble with Vakula, a character in a story by Gogol

Life and works

Valery Ermakov, the creator of this art environment, was born in 1938. Already as a youngster he was interested in creative activities, like he -after some instructions of his mother- at age five already decorated bird whistles made from clay. 

However, there was no professional artistic career ahead of him. All his life he has been working as a design engineer. He got married in the 1980s and the couple settled in Poltava, a town of some 300.000 inhabitants in the north-east of Ukraine, located some 340 km east of Kiev.

Greek God Pan

In addition to his job, Ermakov in his free time developed into a self-taught artist, this with the support and encouragement of his wife. He made paintings and sculptures, but, perhaps too impatient to keep up, he attended just a few meetings of a course for amateurs. Eventually he got his information about art from magazines and tutorials.

Ermakov participated in the fair in Sorochinskyi, a famous market in his region and one of the largest in Ukraine with a lot of attention for cultural matters, but he was not inclined to sell his work at a price which, in his opinion, was too low. On the other hand, he would donate his creations to local schools and churches.

In 2007, after Ermakov retired, he and his wife moved to the  community of Panasivka, a very small village with just a couple of houses and without shops.

a goddess (?) with blue hair

Here Ermakov had space and time to create sculptures and paintings and his wife could enjoy her hobby of gardening.

To make sculptures, Ermakov glues small pieces of styrofoam together and processes the raw material just with a knife. He finds his inspiration in the works of the author Nikolai Gogol (who by the way was born in a village in the Poltava region) and also in Greek and Roman mythology. 

Artworks outdoors

The outdoor artworks are partly grouped in a modest sculpture garden on the side of the house (picture above). 

As the other pictures above show, this part includes a sculpture that represents Vakula, a character from a story by Gogol, another one that depicts the Greek mythological character Pan and a third one that depicts a female nude with blue hair, kind of a Greek goddess or a nymph, about whom Ermakov says that he doesn't know who she is....  

Another part of the outdoor creations includes decorations on the front wall of the living house, especially a radiant yellow sun and a half moon (as in the first picture of this post). There is also a sculpture of a female nude sitting on a pedestal, placed just close to an outside wall of the house.

Artworks indoors

 Above picture gives an impression of the artworks in the living room, a mixture of paintings and sculptures, set up amidst a large number of green plants, which keep alive the memory of his wife who tragically died in 2015.

The character with the bow and the arrow in the corner of the room as in above picture probably is a Cupido, as well as the one in the picture below.

A rather interesting feature of the indoor collection is the sculpture of a lady dressed in a red robe.

Life-size depicted, the woman is at ease in front of a window, in such a way that it seems as if she is part of the household. To my knowledge, in the field of art environments there is only one other self-taught artist with a similar connotation, namely Bogdan Ziętek from Poland.

The Ukraïner project and the trip to Greece

As said, the art environment created by Ermakov from 2007 would have remained unknown if not a specific event had occurred. In his case, it concerned the activities of Ukraïner, a media project by a group of young Ukrainians led by Bogdan Logyvenko to share curious stories about the most distant corners, people, art, and food of Ukraine in order to offer information to the general public to get to know their country better.

A team of Ukraïner visited Ermakov and reported about him in January 2018. Recognizing his great interest in Greece, they started a crowd funding action to offer him a trip to that country. The campaign was successful and in March 2018 the trip took place.

Documentation

* Article Without models (January 20, 2018, in English) on website Ukrainer
* Report about the trip to Greece, with a variety of photos

Video

* Video by Ukraïner (YouTube, 4'52", December 2017), subtitled in English, some nude sculptures, so the video can only seen on YouTube)

Valery Ermakov

Sculpture garden and interior with paintings and sculptures

Panasivka, Poltava region, Ukraine

sculpture garden can be seen from the road

Josué Virgili, La cittá fiorita / The flowered city

 this picture and the next two (undated, probably 1980s)
© Francis David and © LAM from the website Habitants Paysagistes

Now that in March 2018 the Lille Art Museum, France, has published it's website Habitants Paysagistes, illustrative material has become available with the effect that some new entries may be added to this blog. Like the following note about a by now disappeared art environment in Kremlin-Bicêtre, a community south of Paris, France

Life and works

Josué Virgili (1901-1999) ¹, who created this site, migrated in 1922 from Italy to France where he worked as a marble mason, first in Monaco and later -from 1932 on- in the Paris region.

He liked to write poetry and other texts in Italian and he somehow considered himself a messenger of god with the mission to spread love and brotherhood.

When retired, around 1970 he began transforming exterior and interior of his house in Kremlin-Bicêtre into an art environment.

His artistic production in particular includes a large variety of colorful small-scale objects that almost completely cover floors and walls, such as self-made dolls, vases, small sculptures and other objects, often displayed on a variety of equally self-made pedestals and small tables.

For some creations cement was used and these items are often inlaid with pieces of mirror glass, marble or faience, like most exterior and interior floors were also decorated with mosaic in various patterns.

A rather special and characteristic part of Virgili's art includes a series of all kinds of circular creations, often decorated with mosaics or colorfully painted, which evoke associations with or symbolize the sun.

The exterior had various totems, poles with doves or weather-vanes on top and other structures such as a towery one as in above picture that is reminiscent of the Eiffel tower.

Some of Virgili's creations in detail

Francis David's pictures of the site as shown above, mainly provide an overview of the site. But it is interesting to look at some details of Virgili's creations,

The picture below, from the website of the ABCD-art brut collection, showing a pedestal/table made by Virgili, gives a good impression of the way Virgili decorated his creations with mosaic and small concrete structures.

Sculpted heads similar to the one that can be seen in the table leg, return in various other table legs and totems that are part of this art environment, as can be seen in the photo by Bruno Montpied below.

picture (1984) by Bruno Montpied, from his weblog

Also rather interesting is the story around Virgili's creation pictured below, a shining sun that has an accompanying inscription, saying LA RACINE fait pousser (the root makes grow).

This creation became the emblem of the French association l'Aracine. Presided by Madeleine Lommel, the Association brought together an important collection of art brut artworks, which currently is cared for by the Lille Art Museum.

Madeleine Lommel explains in an interview ² with Jeanine Rivais that this emblem was chosen because of the expressiveness of the image and its title (for Virgili faire pousser also meant faire brisquer, which in English is something like to beak, to enrage or to make jealous)

The site has been partially lost, partly preserved

Virgili's art environment doesn't exist anymore. The small items generally are preserved, and have ended up at art dealers, in the collection of l'Aracine or other private collections.

The mosaics and similar decorations on walls and floors probably have gone lost.

Documentation
* Entry about Virgili in website Habitants paysagistes
* Article in Wikipedia
* In his weblog (October 2010) Bruno Montpied reports about a visit he paid in 1984 to Virgili

notes
¹ The date of birth mentioned here is the one as stated in the article in the website Habitants Paysagistes and in the website ABCD-art brut; Wikipedia; mentions 1907 as birth year
² In this interview Madeleine Lommel also explains that l'Aracine means: Les Amis Réunis Autour d'une Création Intemporelle, Novatrice, Essentielle (The Friends Gathered around a Timeless Creation, Innovative, Essential)

Josué Virgili
La cittá fiorita

(formerly) avenue Charles Gide

Kremlin-Bicêtre, dept Val de Marne, région Île-de-France, France

the site doesn't exist anymore

Dmitry Skurikhin, Плакаты на внешних стенах / Posters on exterior walls

this picture and the next one from Facebook

Viewing the picture above, one might assume it represents an art environment of someone from the newest generation of self-taught Russian artists.

And indeed, Alexander Emelyanov in a recent article on the Russian website Sygma  presents above photo next to photos of facteur Cheval's Ideal Palace and of his own creation Aquaduct Tashkent and -establishing a corresponding creative signature between the three creations- he classifies the decorated building as an art environment.

Actually, the decorated building is one of the three supermarkets owned by entrepreneur Dmitry Skurikhin, who in the ever-changing handmade posters gives his opinion on political developments in Russia.

So this site can be considered as an art environment with political messages.

picture from website Charter97

the text reads: "Dimon got run over. Let’s go after Vovan"

("Dimon" refers to prime minister Dmitry Medvedev and

"Vovan" is a humorous reference to Vladimir Putin)

  

Life and works

Dmitry Shurikin was born on december 1, 1974 in Russko-Vysotskoye, a community in the Leningrad oblast, some 45 km south-west of St Petersburg. He studied engineering at the Baltic State Technical University "Voenmeh" and graduated in 1997.

However, instead of choosing a technical career, Skurikhin became a businessman when in the late 1990s he bought an abandoned building where he established a supermarket. Currently in and around Russko-Vysotskoye he owns three shops.

The shop with the decorated walls is located in the village of Ropsha. Shurikhin lives with his family in another village in the region. 

picture from Facebook

Skurikhin at home, making a poster 

In 1996 Skurikhin began to manifest himself as someone with political ambitions, clearly expressing his views and not hesitating to criticize those in power. To a van he used to cross the region visiting his shops, he added stickers with political statements, which sometimes involved a confrontation with the police.

Participating in the 2009 Russko-Vysotskoye local elections, Skurikhin was elected and became a municipal district council member until 2014, a position he held together with nine members from United Russia.

picture from website Charter97
the text reads: "Congratulations to the 61th anniversary of
the death of the Dragon. The dragon died, but his cause lives"

The poster project

In the spring of 2014 Skurikhin began working with posters. At a bus shelter he had improvised in front of his store in Ropsha, he hung a couple of posters dealing with Crimea and one about Stalin as in above picture. That construction was kind of a birthday present for his wife, who works with him as an accountant in the company that manages the three shops owned by the family.

The authorities were not amused and ordered the demolishment of the bus shelter. Skurikhin did this and then went to attach the posters to the exterior wall of the store. He has continued his creative and political activity of decorating the shop to the present day (April 2018). 

 

The local authorities try to obstruct this activity as much as possible. In any case the police will make pictures of the posters. A sea container located near the shop, decorated with posters and graffiti texts by Skurikhin, was removed by the police.

The "pyramids" in front of the shop are anti-tank obstacles, installed by Skurikhin to prevent intrusion of the shop by the police.

picture from Facebook

the text reads "The main thieves down" 

 

The artistic potential of the posters

Apart from the political content of the posters, which is not taken into account in this weblog, it can be established that the posters in a creative sense have a strong appearance.

This appearance is mainly based on a sober calligraphy with the use of just capitals and the colors red and black, while illustrations are added only very rarely.

The attractive thing about the posters is that it is clear they were made by a non-professional.

All together Skurikhin's work might be seen as a a contemporary combination of folk art and art of propaganda.

picture from news magazine The Village

the text reads "Peace to Ukraine, stop Putin's policies against it"

In the field of art environments in Europe just a few sites are known with posters or poster-like inscriptions at the exterior, but then always in combination with other visual decorations, such as the inscription on the exterior wall of Isravele' site in Palermo, Italy, the movie posters on the exterior wall of Guy Brunet, France, the posters from Ensio Tuppurainen from Finland or the exterior posters in Joe McKinley's site in Northern Ireland.

So an art environment with just posters on an exterior wall as in Skurikhin's site, might be unique in the field of European art environments.

Skurikhin and Russia's war with Ukraine 

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Skurikhin protested with a poster. He was then arrested, but released after some time. 

Because he did not stop protesting, he was arrested again, after which in August 2023 a judge sentenced him to 1.5 years in prison for discrediting the Russian army. 

The video below (YouTube, 11'18") shows the plea he made in court, pointing to Russia's constitutional right of free speech.

Documentation

* Skurikhin's Facebook page

* article by Elizaveta Maternaya (December 2017) on website Charta'97

* article Maria Bashmakova (February 2018) on website Novaya Gazeta

* article Skurikhin art (March 2018) by Alexander Emelyanov on website Syg.ma

Dmitry Skurikhin

Posters on an exterior wall

Ropsha, Leningrad region, Russia
can be seen from the street