Ivan Alifan‘s paintings attempt to freeze on canvas a precise moment of abandonment to pleasure, lust and uncontrolled desire.

Following a path that seems to have been traced before him, and in completely different contexts, from the languid beauty of Correggio‘s and Tiziano‘s women to Courbet‘s provocations, Alifan seems to want to seduce our gaze through erotic portraits that manage not to lead to pornography.

Art is beyond an image of perception and creativity. Art is part of the past, present, future, where one can interpret their own view. Painting allows me as an artist to express my strengths or my vulnerability.

Born in ’89, son of Russian painter Anna Razumovskaya, and now based in NYC, Alifan is known for the series “It’s Not Milk“, in which the subjects and landscapes are ambiguously covered with a milky liquid.

For Alifan, his paintings aim to break sexual taboos through figures that literally ooze eroticism in pastel colors. They want to force the viewer’s exploration, disarm him, break down the barriers of modesty, show sex and lust for what they are and that is pure human pleasures.

Because after all, art is sex and sex is art.

Follow his Instagram profile to discover also the making-of of his works.