8 funniest cats in contemporary Russian art

Mysterious, cute, romantic, and businesslike - these emotional cats are sure to cheer you up.

Artists have depicted cats since ancient times. Meet these contemporary Russian artists who also couldn't resist drawing cute fluffy balls on their canvases.

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1. St. Petersburg artist Maria Pavlova paints everyday life in the city and beyond, and imposing and aristocratic cats often become models in her paintings. The artist does not have cats at home, as one of her daughters has allergies, but this does not prevent stray cats from coming to her house, lying on bookshelves, sitting at the table, and “teaching” kids to play the piano. For their work, cats receive a tasty reward and a portrait as a keepsake. This painting called "Duet" is one of her most famous works. It even turned into a meme on social media.

2. One of the most eccentric contemporary artists is Vasily Lozhkin from the Moscow region, known for his paintings of social satire. His characters are brutal cats, stern grannies, and giant bears in hats with earflaps. They may look creepy, but that's only at first glance. He's actually drawing an imaginary world, so there's nothing to worry about.

3. St. Petersburg watercolor cats by Vladimir Rumyantsev are sophisticated intellectuals who have literary conversations with the poet Alexander Pushkin, admire the city from the rooftops along with angels, and experience romantic moments on the embankments. His cats are so loved by the locals that now they can be found in calendars and other souvenirs from St. Petersburg.

4. Paintings by Alexander Maskaev from the Moscow region at first glance may seem like illustrations for children's books, but through his fairy-tale characters he depicts serious problems. For example, look at whose tune the mice are dancing to and what the parrot is doing in the background.

5. Moscow artist Stepan Kashirin creates paintings with anthropomorphic characters. In fact, in his works, cats live the life of people: they meet, get married, go to parties, fish, and do science. The genre in which he works, Kashirin calls "fantastic realism." By the way, he also has a whole project in which cats “replace” people in famous paintings by old artists.

6. Dmitry Trubin, an artist and sculptor from Arkhangelsk, is known mainly for his geometric portraits and monumental paintings. However, he has a whole series of watercolor cats that indulge in various entertainments in the evenings. They play cards, drink, and eat deliciously - as they say, nothing human is alien to them.

7. Cats, dogs, and pigeons are the favorite animals of illustrator Alice Yufa from St. Petersburg. She calls her sketches of city life simply “pictures”, and her fans never cease to admire her style and intellectual humor. Alice's cats "rescue" people from the bath, check the availability of food in the refrigerator, watch social networks together, and generally make the world more comfortable.

8. Welcome to the universe of Stepan the Cat and his cat friend Maria. This world was created by an artist named Bird Born, who carefully hides his real name and lives in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In addition to cats, his world also contains birds, the ghost of a hare, Death who hates his work, wolverines, and other mystical characters. Bird Born's sketches about the lives of these characters are very popular with Russian social media users.