"About author"

Mikhnov-Voytenko's name is associated first of all with his abstract paintings of the 70s and 80s, which looked like monotypes, but were made in very sophisticated techniques. His works of the 50s and 60s are less known. But it was then that his creative research on the edge of different styles and techniques put him among the most radical experimentalists of the world. His works of the second half of the 50s with their symbolic ornaments, inscriptions, and digits were decades ahead of Penk's graffiti and works by "East Village" and "New Artists" from Leningrad.

The artist's pictures-relieves of the beginning of the 60s looked very unusual. They were a mixture of painting and sculpture. Some of Mikhnov-Voytenko's works of that period echoed the abstract innovations of the expressionism, others reminded the search of plastics by the Leningrad Arefyev's group.

Mikhnov was always trying to have in his works something of mystic, spiritual, hard to express kind. He was to be a "God's brush". According to him the main notions of his paintings were Event and Astonishment. He built a special desk for his work. It had a rocking top board, helping him to swing the flows of paint and water into needed directions. Alchemist's result of his experiments demanding masterly skills and techniques in treating surfaces and paints was always unpredictable.