online catalogue

18.04 - 17.05. 20256

Opening: Saturday April 18th, from 5 - 8 pm
Location: NMAG, Bos en Lommerweg 88-90

No Man’s Art Gallery is honoured to open Typha the fourth solo exhibition by Maxim Santalov with the gallery.

At a young age, the self-taught artist started drawing after school while waiting for his grandmother to finish work at the hairdresser’s salon in the outskirts of Moscow. He created small illustrations on magazine covers. These daily sketches soon developed into a serious artistic passion without ever compromising his youthful spontaneity. 

Typha shows a dense and rhythmic universe where memory and imagination intertwine. Intricately composed drawings, built from geometric repetition and vivid colour, trace pathways through imagined ecosystems populated by insects, plants, cosmic constellations and hybrid figures. Rooted in childhood experiences, his work reflects summers spent in rural Ukraine, where encounters with nature shaped his visual language. This sense of wonder persists in his “insectarium”, a metaphorical space where vanishing species and unidentifiable creatures coexist.

Santalov’s compositions balance oppositions such as modern and rural, rigid and organic, playful and unsettling. Wax crayon, pencil and acrylic create surfaces alive with scratches and ripples, giving breath to seemingly compact spaces. His works invite viewers to wander, like tracing an insect’s trail, through shifting narratives that evoke both personal memory and cultural echoes.

In Typha, Santalov deepens this exploration. “Typha” refers to a genus of wetland plants, commonly known as cattails, symbolising resilience, growth and ecological interconnectedness. Rooted in water yet reaching upwards, they mirror the artist’s process, grounded in memory while extending into speculative worlds. Here, Typha becomes both subject and metaphor, guiding us through a landscape where organic life merges with geometric order.

Maxim Santalov, Typha, 2025, Pencils and acrylic on paper, 101 x 84 cm