Cover | Igor & Marina

Kimono, oil on canvas, by Igor & Marina. Working as a husband-and-wife team, the Russian-born duo collaborates on each canvas. Marina contributes her impressive skills as a figurative artist in the Old Master tradition. Igor lends his refined sense of color, shape, texture, and affinity for abstract images. As a result, the paintings are influenced by, and recall, a diverse spectrum of artists and eras: famous avant-garde figures like Chagall, Malevich, and Kandinsky as well as 15th-century Russian religious painters. Partly, this array of forebearers reflects the artists’ educations. Trained in rigorous Russian academies to appreciate both ancient and modern techniques, they learned to combine past and present with fluidity. And just as dreams synthesize all manner of seemingly disparate material into cohesive experiences, so Igor and Marina blend the modern and traditional, the representational and the abstract—and indeed their own divergent personalities—into each finished painting. Courtesy of Caldwell Snyder Gallery, 341 Sutter St., San Francisco, 415-392-2299, and 1328 Main St., St. Helena, 707-200-5050, www.CaldwellSnyder.com.

NEXT MONTH: As 2016 gets underway, The Monthly readers will find Reese Erlich practically dancing a tango over house concerts, Paul Kilduff has a sit-down with PR kingpin Sam Singer over “carmaggedon” and “Warrior worries” in arenaland at Mission Bay, and dance critic Rita Felciano goes a little ga-ga over the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan’s visit to Cal Performances.