The exhibition of Nikolai Sazhin’s (1948–2019) oeuvre presents one of the most extraordinary and enigmatic artists in Petersburg art of the last two decades of the twentieth century. His predilection for the grotesque and the fantastic, for the borderline states of human existence characterises his work, which was based on the ‘eternal’ themes of existence: Eros and Thanatos, love and death, the mysterious dynamics of transformations of the energy of life into the processes of decay. He tried to discern in modern man the presence of unchanging animal nature, preserved dormant instincts. Sazhin's fascinating analytical works demonstrate the play with meaning and form, the transformation of quite real, recognisable figures into bizarre anthropomorphic and plant–like formations. The exhibition will present exciting paintings and graphic compositions from the 1980s – early 2000s – the most fruitful and successful period in the artist's oeuvre, when Sazhin's unique creative language on the verge of figurative art and abstraction was finally formed. The exhibition will also include works from the Line, extensive graphic series–installation, to which the artist devoted the last two decades of his career. The horizon line flowing from one sheet of paper to another is reinterpreted and transformed in this series into lines of life, history, and creativity; gospel, kitsch, and abstract subjects intersect in the work. About forty works from the Museum of 20^th–21^st Century Art of St Petersburg collection will be shown at the exhibition.