BAILUN (Vasily Nikolaevich Saprykin)

Russian, born 1964

BiographyBAILUN, pen name
Real name: Vasily Nikolaevich Saprykin
Artist. Born in Kaluga region, RSFSR, USSR. Lives and works in Kaluga, Russia.
Language: Russian
Culture: Russian

He left his way in fine art, where he practiced in conceptual art and hyperrealism and turned to the daguerreotype technique. Several years of searches and experiments in 2004 finally succeeded with his first daguerreotype, what was the first one in Russia in the 21st century. BAILUN chooses the Becquerel method (silver, mercury-free imaging process) between the two methods of developing the sensed surface of the daguerreotype.
In 2009, BAILUN was the only from Russia and one of 18 daguerreotype-artists from all over the world, whose works were presented at the exhibition of the modern daguerreotype in Brie-sur-Marne, in the French city where Louis Jacques Daguerre, the founder of the photography and creator of daguerreotype method, spent the last years of his life. BAILUN works are on display at the Scientific Library of the Russian Academy of Arts (it is the only Russian collection where L.J. Daguerre’s plates are hold), in the collection of the city of Brie-sur-Marne in the house-museum of L.J. Daguerre, in private collections in the USA, France, Russia, Sweden. BAILUN is an adviser for several historical and photographic projects. He is represented by PennLab Gallery, Moscow, where his project Desiderium was on display during winter – spring of 2022.

Text by Irina Chmyreva, PhD, Russian Curator of Photography

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