Denis Kulikov was born in Yaroslavl in 1978. Having connected the profession with metal and spare parts, his artistic activity began with the idea of how to give scrap metal a second life. The process of “reincarnation” of textured parts and the mystery of the birth of each new sculpture inspire the artist and allow him to draw an inexhaustible flow of energy to create unusual installations.

 At present, the name of Kulikov is already widely known in his hometown. In Yaroslavl, he created several unofficial attractions, one of which was especially quite popular with the citizens of Yaroslavl - a sculpture of a dinosaur in human size, guarding the building of the city archive. However, at the initial stage of his work, the master worked incognito. Before opening his personal gallery in the city shopping and entertainment complex of Yaroslavl "Altair", Kulikov kept the sculptures in a garage. When the number of his ideas exceeded the number of square meters available to him the sculptor realized that it was time to show his work to the audience and create a separate space for the exhibition.

Kulikov's ideas for processing metal into art objects were highly appreciated by members of the jury of the Moscow Green Project competition, where the master got the first place in his nomination. In 2019, the first personal exhibition of Kulikov took place outside his native country - in Qatar. Large-scale works of car and motorcycle parts, wrenches, cut nails and bent spoons were first shown in a single conceptual space and immediately received a splendid response from a discerning audience. The freshness and spontaneity of the artist's vision of everyday things in his sculptures attracts people’s attention, prompting the eyes to take a closer look at the thousands of different details - components of the work.

The search for creative self-expression also led Denis Kulikov to landscape design. According to the sculptor, it is sometimes necessary to get distracted from the mainstream in order to stay inspired. Making objects out of wood is a meditative process, different from working with iron. Direct work with natural materials brings a person closer to the gifts of the earth, its energy, and it is not so much the artist transforms them as they transform him.

In 2020, the first Moscow personal exhibition of Denis Kulikov under the title “Alternative Evolution” summarizing the ideas in his works will begin in April at the POP UP MUSEUM Museum of Contemporary Russian Art. The exposition will bring together plots of the parallel branch of evolution, created by the author, where amphibian dinosaurs, half fish - half cars, crossed vegetables, cyborgs with human consciousness, and giant insects exist. Conceptually, the sculptures are combined with recycled metal, which creates the effect of cyberization and futurization of objects.

Denis Kulikov came up with the ambitious idea of introducing scrap metal sculptures into the discourse of contemporary art, creating his own statement about global problems of the present and future through the recycling of materials. Depictions of the contrast between nature and technology, the real and the imaginary, the struggle between the natural and the artificial inspire the artist to reflect dialectically on the coexistence of man and his planet, as well as his responsibility to the world, that he will have to conquer once and for all.

    Alexander Dedov is a Russian artist and sculptor from St. Petersburg, formerly an object designer (British Higher School of Design). The hobby of metal sculpting for Dedov began in 2006 when he first tried welding random scrap metal objects in his garage with a transformer; since then, the hobby has become a passion and a life-long endeavor.

     His sculptures and art-objects is inspired by the industrial, post-apocalyptic energy of abandoned cities and industrial zones. Gloomy and alienating at first glance, Dedov's works reveal humanistic ideas of the best human aspirations.

    Dedov defines his works as the unity of three large-scale phenomena: material, technology, and the power of thought. Metal, which has been mined by man since ancient times and is the foundation of form, becomes, at this point, a unity of three large-scale phenomena: the material and the power of thought.

    This time interlinks with the technologies of civilization, which are constantly being improved. Thanks to technologies that didn't exist 20 or 30 years ago, the material can take ever more innovative forms. Finally, connecting with the creative spiritual power of the author, his imagination, the form acquires an idea and becomes true art.

Alexey Kanis was born in St. Petersburg in 1983; graduated from the Department of Monumental Sculpture at the Faculty of Monumental Art at the Art and Industry Academy named after AL Stieglitz and it was here, according to the artist, that he defined his purpose in creative development.

During his studies, the future sculptor came up with his own stone-cutting direction and a unique plastic language, combining stone-cut sculpture with the physical embodiment of volumetric mosaic; he also managed to make several large projects in China and Russia and to interest several large galleries with his work.

In an effort to simplify forms and cut off excess, Kanis inherits the ideas of the golden age of Greek sculpture from the times of Phidias and Polycletus, as well as the famous British abstract sculptor Henry Moore. Thanks to complete, laconic forms, even the most monumental works of Kanis look sophisticated and have a mesmerizing aesthetic impact on the viewer.

The base material for Kanis's sculptures is premium marbles, including the Belgian black marble, which is currently the most expensive marble in the world. The unique material for the artist is of great importance - in addition to giving the sculptures a graphic and elitist look, it is also itself one of the sources of Kanis's exceptional style. Precisely and clearly arranged volumes in space, combined with rich and pure colors of different types of stone, make objects majestic and intuitively attractive for perception.

The aesthetics of Aleksey Kanis's works are inspired by the art of the Ancient World, as well as modernist trends of the 30-60s of the 20th century. Thanks to careful manual grinding of the fragments of the sculpture, the artist achieves the effect of seamless joining of colors in the object, as two colors seamlessly merge together in a beautiful contrast. Due to their large volumes in synthesis with architecture and landscape, sculptures become an important plastic or semantic dominant of the interior and landscape.

Kanis participates in many international exhibitions and completed sculptural projects. 18 monumental works of his authorship – garden, park and city sculptures - are currently installed in 12 countries in different continents, including countries in Asia and Europe. The artist also collaborates with international collectors - his sculptures annually replenish private and museum collections around the world.