Anatoly Solodiakov's life and work

Anatoly Solodiakov is of Koryak-Even origin. He lives in Palana on the west coast of Kamchatka. During his school years he spent the holidays with his parents in the tundra helping out with the reindeer. As he remembers, “I can see everything perfectly clearly - the reindeer, the tundra, the mountains and the vast snow fields. All this has made a deep impression on me […] just as fishing on the coast and in the rivers; I only express things in my work that I really know about.”

Solodiakov studied the art of wood carving and painting at St. Peterburg’s Herzen Institute. He then first worked as an art teacher in Khanti-Mansiisk before returning to Kamchatka where he now lives in Palana. Apart from scenes of everyday life, Solodiakov also uses motifs from the mythology and oral tradition mainly of the Koryak in his carved figures and drawings. A central item in this respect is the half human half ravenlike figure Kutkynniaku who made the world the way it is today.

Anatoli Solodiakov is often inspired by objects from museum collections. He has also discovered illustrations of ritual objects no longer in use in books such as those of Waldemar Jochelson. These objects and their artistic re-creation are a means for him to access traditions of his people that are in danger of being forgotten.

“In my work, I try to show how people here live in their own special way and what has been handed down in our legends and myths. The subjects of my drawings and my figurative representations are taken from the everyday lives of these peoples, and I also try to reflect their world views in them.”

Recorded by Erich Kasten. Palana, 2002