Out of the same tendency arose another strong group of works (in oil and watercolor): en extensive series of female nudes. This is theme with a powerful artistic tradition, and Petrenko's "Nudes" certainly owe much to his many predecessors. This debt is most heavily felt in the watercolors. His focus is the admiration of and pleasure in the beauty of the female body, its lines and shapes, and the grace of the movements and poses. The artist's concept (to portray the enlarged, sharply delineated, reclining figures with heavy limbs - in its own way, an "apotheosis of the flesh", and moreover, particular parts of the body seem to take on an artistic life of their own) works most of all on the contrast with the typical nude portrayal. Irina Karasik chief curator of the State Russian Museum About autor | Painting | Graphic | Nude | Illustration