A Figure Before Language: Expressive Modern Figurative Wall Art in Acrylic and Oil, 2023

Serhio Lichi  

Sergey Nikitin, working under the artist name Serhio Lichi, is a contemporary artist living and working between Mexico, Moscow, and Cyprus. A resident of Winzavod Open Studios in 2019–2020, he has presented solo exhibitions at Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, CUBE Moscow, Lega Gallery, and other venues. His work has also appeared in international exhibitions, biennials, art fairs, auctions, and performance programs, including projects at the Manege Central Exhibition Hall, ART4 Museum, the Museum of the Revolution in Cuba, and the Altai Biennale.

Serhio works at the intersection of expressive figurative painting, performance, mixed media, and object-based art. His practice treats painting not simply as image-making but as a physical event shaped by the body, place, material, and risk of action. Each work responds to a specific environment—from the studio and city streets to forests and sand—absorbing traces of its surroundings.

Using acrylic, oil, spray paint, charcoal, texture gels, soil, sand, branches, ropes, and found natural elements, Serhio transforms the canvas into a physical body with its own structure and memory. He connects, ties, deforms, wounds, repairs, and places canvases in space, bringing painting closer to sculpture and performative action. His works balance intense gesture with restraint, preserving areas of silence within chaos. Through this approach, Serhio seeks to create independent, living objects that carry the raw energy of the moment in which they were made.