Sanya Kantarovsky is a rare combination: a painter’s painter who works across a variety of media. The Russian-born, Upstate New York-based artist is best known for his haunting, darkly humorous figurative paintings. But he also makes videos, animations, and sculptures.
“A conceptual painter friend recently told me that you can only be a good artist or a good painter—one or the other,” Kantarovsky said in an interview with the Brooklyn Rail in 2019. “I think there’s some truth to that, but I’m of the mind that being both is possible, albeit very difficult.”
CULTURED checked in with the artist about life in the studio.
