Portugalete Higher education:
(2008-2011) Institute of painting, sculpture and architecture named after I.E. Repin of The Russian Academy of Arts.
Professional education:
(1988-1992) Icon-painting school, Saint-Petersburg theological academy and seminary.
(1885-1990) Was working on the restoration of monuments of history and culture of Leningrad under The Main Department Of Culture.
General and group exhibitions:
1) The house of Muruzi. The first icon exhibition, 1994 (Saint-Petersburg);
2) The Museum of A.S.Pushkin. The modern icon, 2001 (Saint-Petersburg), The exhibition hall.
Membership:
1) Saint-Petersburg Artists Union (2008-2018);
2) TRIADA – The Union of Russian Painters In Finland.
Storage in museums:
Valaam island, Transfiguration Cathedral; Monastery of St. Anthony of Sia; Compound of the Valaam Monastery in St.Petersburg; The Church of the Holy Martyr Elizabeth and St. Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem; Residence of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Greece (Athos), Finland (monastery new Valaam) etc.; Private collection in Russia and other countries.
Marks of Excellence:
Gold medal of the St. Petersburg Union of Artists; gratitude from the Moscow Patriarchate for the restoration of the painting of the Panteleimon Monastery on Mount Athos and the metochion in Constantinople, the Valaam and Tikhvin monasteries, the painting of the Preobrazhensky Cathedral of Optin the Pustyn and the Novodevichy Convent in St. Petersburg.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Yury Pimenov was born in 1963 in Karaganda (Kazakhstan), where his grandfather had been sent as a former political prisoner. He began his creative career with secular art. He began his professional training working in restoration of historical and cultural monuments of Leningrad at the Main Directorate of Culture. He studied icon painting, worked as a restoration artist at the Ecclesiastical Academy and Seminary. He graduated from the Repin Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg.
What determined his creative path was the trip to Mount Athos with the blessing of the Moscow Patriarchate to restore the mural paintings of St. Panteleimon’s Russian monastery. He studied special techniques of painting, mural painting, and icons in the monasteries of Vatopedi, Zograf, Simonopetra, Meg.Lavras, Karies, Hilandar, in the Skete of Saint Anne, as well as in vast icon depositories. Studying the icon through the restoration process both technically and theologically, he strove to uphold the traditions that had once been broken. Having received the blessing of Starets Father Saint Paisios of Mount Athos, Georgy goes into icon painting and monumental painting, takes interest in the whole multitude of available schools and techniques. Great attention is paid to the Moscow and Byzantine schools.
Continuing studies of the Byzantine school, he paints a replica of the image of Saint Gregory of Neocaesarea in the Hermitage. Upon return from Mount Athos, he worked at the Valaam mission of Saint Petersburg, at the icon workshop. During the same period, many icons were painted, and he was one of the first in Russia to paint an icon of Saint Tsar Nicholas II. In Finland in the New Valamo monastery, he paints a replica of the miracle-working Valaam icon of Mother of God. There he also taught a course in icon painting (1999-2000). In 2000 he works on restoration of oil and tempera art on Mount Athos in the St. Panteleimon monastery and in Constantinople (Istanbul) at the mission of the Athos monastery. He is involved in painting the cathedral of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God in the Novodevichy Convent, Saint Petersburg (2002-2003). He conducted the restoration of the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Tikhvin Monastery, as he took part in preparations for the homecoming of the Theotokos of Tikhvin (2004). In 2007, he supervises a group of students and teachers on a trip to the Optina Pustyn to paint the Transfiguration Cathedral. He participates in international conferences: in 2010 in Belgrade, Serbia (Architecture and Iconography) with a report on painting technique, in 2011 in Saint Petersburg (“Contemporary Icon in the World”). In 2012, he lectures on a course of icon painting in Stockholm. In 2012, he goes to New Valamо (Finland) as a teacher with a group of students, where he paints a replica of Konevskaya icon of the Mother of God for the residence of His Beatitude Theophilos III of Jerusalem. In 2013—2014, he paints the two-sided iconostasis for the lower and upper temple of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist of Jukki in Saint Petersburg, where he helmed and was the leading icon painter on the project. Since 2006 until present, Georgy has been passing on his experience and knowledge teaching icon painting at the Saint Petersburg Orthodox Christian Institute of Religious Studies and Church Arts, at the Russian Christian University for the Humanities, he teaches courses at the Church of Saint Nicholas in Kotka (Finland). He is the chairman of the icon painting section of the International Federation of Artists (IFA). Since 1994 he has taken part in icon painting exhibitions.
Georgy’s icons are in many churches in Russia: on the island of Valaam, in the monastery of St. Anthony of Siya, in Vladivostok, in the monastery church of Saint Peter and Paul the Apostles on the island of Belov in Lake Pskovskoye. In Saint Petersburg, in the Valaam Monastery mission, in Vladimirsky Cathedral of the Mother of God, etc. Many of his icons are in Jerusalem (in the cathedrals of Saint Martyr Elizabeth, Saint M. Magdalene) (the Patriarchate residence), in Greece (including Mount Athos), in Finland. Many icons found their place in private collections in Russia and abroad.
He was awarded the gold medal of Saint Petersburg Creative Union of Artists.
