Sergei Troshin

A late start, and a deliberate one

Sergei Troshin came to painting from an unusual direction. His background is in German studies and linguistics, and he spent many years teaching and working in other professional fields before devoting himself to art. He is self-taught as a painter — there is no art school in the story, and it shows in the work in a useful way: the surfaces are built by experiment rather than by received method.

He presents his work under the name Sans Souci Art Gallery, which is both the studio and the place his paintings are shown.

How the work is made

Troshin creates tactile, multi-layered compositions using acrylic paint, natural pigments, resin, collage and diamond dust. The results often evoke aged walls, fragments of wallpaper and surfaces shaped by time — the sort of thing you would stop and touch if it were on a building rather than in a room. That is the intention: the work invites you to look beneath the surface rather than only at it.

Because the surfaces are physically built up, the pieces behave differently as the light changes. A work that reads as quiet at midday can look entirely different under a low evening lamp.

What the work is about

His practice explores interiors, cultural memory, spiritual symbolism, and the changing effects of light and atmosphere. Having lived across several countries and cultures, his work reflects an ongoing dialogue between memory, place and identity.

Moving between abstraction and suggestion, the paintings invite viewers to discover connections between the visible and the remembered. A piece rarely tells you what it is; more often it gives you the conditions in which you recognise something of your own.

Exhibitions and reach

Troshin has exhibited his work in Canada and internationally, in both group and independent art contexts. Works from the studio are now held in private collections — pieces marked Sold or Private Collection in the gallery are part of that record, and they stay online deliberately as an archive of how the work has developed.

In his own words

“Through Colours To Places You’ve Never Been!”

Sergei Troshin

For him, painting is not only about what is seen, but also about what is felt, remembered and rediscovered. Through his work he invites viewers to find beauty in layers, traces and forgotten fragments.