early years
Before becoming Gauguin, this young man bore the name Ilya and was not much different from ordinary Moscow teenagers. Ilya Solntsev (real name) was born on December 5, 1980. According to Solntsev himself, his father often drank and beat his mother, so Lyudmila Kravtsova left her husband, and ten-year-old Ilya was given to his paternal relatives to raise.
Gauguin Solntsev in childhood and youth
Ilya grew up surrounded by the care of his aunt and grandmother, and dreamed of becoming an actor. The young man played the piano and sang in the choir, but after graduating from school, he could not enter a specialized university. Despite the fact that Ilya passed the entrance tests, the course was already filled, and the teachers suggested that the young man apply for paid education. Ilya did not have that kind of money. Ilya (Gauguin) Solntsev as a child in the program “I’ll Sing Right Now” (1989) The artist speaks warmly of his aunt and grandmother, noting that they lived very modestly, but amicably. He was never able to establish a relationship with his mother; the woman was never interested in him. She remembered her son only many years later, when Ilya became a famous media person. Gauguin Solntsev and his mother in the show “Actually” In order to somehow support himself, Ilya worked in network marketing, sold theater tickets, and worked as a bartender. Thanks to his acquaintance with the administrator of the children's creativity club, Ilya was able to get a job as an acting teacher in a children's theater group. Over the five years of work, Ilya has established himself as a talented teacher; he took part in the filming of children’s programs on TV with young actors.
Creative path
Ilya Solntsev gained his first experience in creative development by organizing a group to teach children the art of acting. His classes were distinguished by a unique approach to known forms of teaching, based on his own experience.
At this time, Ilya takes the pseudonym Gauguin Solntsev. After three years of the circle’s existence, Solntsev already has 10 teachers working for him, and more than 200 students in his classes.
He is the founder and artistic director of the Theater of Horrors.
Gauguin Solntsev’s biography also includes film roles. He starred in the films: “Detectives”, “Silent Witness”, “Congress”, “Federal Judge”, “Drum for a Millionaire”, “Trace”.
Gauguin Solntsev is an extraordinary and definitely not boring person. His experiments on his own image are sometimes simply shocking. He appears before the audience either with long hair or bald. She actively wears makeup and appears before us with false eyelashes and purple lipstick. He wears heels and women's clothing, which gives rise to a lot of speculation about his sexual orientation. But recent publications concerning Gauguin Solntsev and his wife seem to give rise to new discussions.
Path to glory
In 2004, Ilya entered the directing course at GITIS. A good income came from his work as an entertainer, to which he was attracted by the luminary of the genre, Irina Egorova. For some time he was an assistant to the famous presenter, but soon his ambitions took over, and he began to think about a solo career.
Young Gauguin Solntsev and Rimma Markova
During this period, the young man changed his name, declaring that he was the reincarnation of the great French artist Gauguin. Taking academic leave, he went on a free voyage. With a new name, the artist began to create solo acts and tried to perform with them, but Gauguin’s disappointment knew no bounds when he discovered that even in provincial towns no one was buying tickets to his shows.
Gauguin Solntsev and Gennady Malakhov
Returning to Moscow, the artist accidentally met one of the MTV producers and ended up on the show “Five in Breakaway.” Without warning anyone, Solntsev came to the studio in an image copied either from Count Dracula or Marilyn Manson. Despite the erupted scandal and threats to escort the “demon” off the set, Gauguin defended his image and gained his first popularity. Immediately after the release of the show, offers from television began to arrive, and soon the whole country saw the artist in the programs “Dinner Party”, “Bang Through”, “House 2”, “Danger Zone” and others.
Creativity and scandals
After graduating from school, the artistic young man went to a theater university, where he passed competitive tests with flying colors. But Solntsev did not get into the acting department, since the course was already filled out, and the teachers offered to study on a commercial basis. To earn money, Gauguin completed courses in network marketing and got a job at a cosmetology company. According to rumors, Ilya achieved success in the network business.
Showman Gauguin Solntsev
The young man’s creative career began by accident. The former teacher opened a children's theater club, remembered the talented student and invited Solntsev to a master class. Gauguin worked in this circle for five years, during which time he managed to take part in children's television programs and collaborated with the Children's Television Academy.
Solntsev’s dreams were to create a Youth Center for Peoples’ Friendship. The young man even found a like-minded person in the person of People's Artist Rimma Markova. At the same time, in an attempt to earn money for his studies, he performed in clubs with original compositions and won a wide audience.
Rimma Markova and Gauguin Solntsev
The second attempt to become an actor was unsuccessful, and Ilya went into directing. Due to his hot temper and disagreements with teachers, he soon took an academic leave, during which he studied at the Lee Strasberg Academy in America. Later, Solntsev acquired his own agent, traveled around the country with concerts, and acted as an entertainer at concerts of Russian pop stars. The guy still received a theatrical education, graduating from the directing department of GITIS.
Since the late 2000s, Gauguin opened the Theater of Horrors, which he named the Moscow Theater of the Absurd. Judging by the information from the VKontakte group dedicated to the work of the theater group, only honored and national artists play in it. The basis of the theater's repertoire is the dramaturgy of the French author Robert Thomas.
Showman Gauguin Solntsev
In 2008, Gauguin also founded the international festival "Frick-Fabric", which has since been held annually in Moscow. Based on information from the page on VKontakte, under his leadership there is an acting school for children from 2 years old.
Apart from Gauguin's chairmanship of the jury of the Children's Television Academy and several children's programs, his first notable appearance on television occurred on the MTV channel. The guy appeared in a reality show in the image of Marilyn Manson, which shocked the directors and stuck in the minds of the audience.
Shocking Gauguin Solntsev
The bright, shocking Gauguin received offers to star in the programs “Dom-2”, “Danger Zone”, “Dinner Party”, “Bang Bang”. Moreover, in the first, Solntsev claimed the place of the no less scandalous participant Rustam Solntsev, whose last name, unlike Ilya, is a pseudonym.
Gauguin Solntsev in the reality show “Dom-2”
There was a common theme in the behavior of the young people - the desire to become famous in any way and make people talk about themselves. Only Rustam, according to reality viewers, followed the path of subtle intrigues, loud scandals and secret provocations. And Gauguin took shocking images, openly deliberately inciting conflicts and fights, as, for example, with Vlad Kadoni or Stas Baretsky.
Solntsev also appeared on central channels in the shows “We Talk and Show” and “Actually”. Footage from Andrei Malakhov’s program “Let Them Talk,” in which Gauguin shouts “Lawyer!”, spread across the Internet in the form of numerous memes. The video with Gauguin screaming was watched by more than a million people in the first day, which immediately made Solntsev a Runet star.
Gauguin Solntsev - “Lawyer!”
Gauguin Solntsev is clear proof that people are greeted by their clothes. And the guy learned this rule perfectly: experiments on his own appearance never cease to amaze, and at times even shock. He appeared as a young man with blond and red hair, almost bald and with long dreadlocks, false eyelashes and purple lipstick. The showman carefully monitors his figure. With a height of 177 cm (according to other information - 180 cm), the young man’s weight does not exceed 66 kg.
At one time he wore women's clothing and high-heeled shoes, decorative colored lenses and wigs. However, at the same time, according to fans, the guy does not occupy his mind; Ilya does not go into his pocket for words.
It is not surprising that few people like the comparison with the shocking young man. So the participant of the same “House-2” Anastasia Balinskaya is offended when she is called a Gauguin clone, and is going to change her own image with the help of a plastic surgeon in order to get rid of the nickname.
Showman Gauguin Solntsev before and after plastic surgery
Gauguin Solntsev himself already used plastic surgery. In 2012, a young man was photographed leaving a plastic surgery center wearing a mask. As fans of the freak assumed, Gauguin had to improve his appearance after the beating. But Solntsev himself denies the fact of the fight. According to him, he just wanted to correct the shape of his lips, but the first time they turned out to be too big, according to his own remark, like Masha Malinovskaya’s. After the second operation, the showman was satisfied.
Theater of the Absurd
The “Theater of the Absurd,” opened by a shocking artist, was met with great distrust. Solntsev positioned his brainchild as “a theater from another planet” and stated that the actors, whose names, however, he did not name, were folk and honored masters of the stage, but the enterprise was not successful.
Outrageous artist Gauguin Solntsev
Realizing the need for sponsorship and not being able to get it, Gauguin began to drink. When the addiction began to take over the artist’s personality, Solntsev, under pressure from his aunt, had to seek help. Having recovered, Solntsev began work with renewed vigor and returned to the institute, graduating in 2008 with a diploma as a pop director.
On the country's main television channel, the star appeared in the "Minute of Fame" show, accompanied by a choir of elderly women. Gauguin, dressed in gold and silver, performed the hit of the legendary Nancy Sinatra and grabbed another portion of fame. Subsequently, the artist more than once amazed his fellow citizens with his appearance and behavior, earning the unofficial title of the country's main freak.
Gauguin Solntsev and the artists of his show theater
Solntsev's show theater acquired a new concept with the arrival of administrator Kairat Kantridze and costume designer Olga Panova, who worked with Vivienne Westwood herself. Productions in which popular songs became unimaginable performances, and classical plays became phantasmagoric performances, were successful. The theater toured Europe and even received the Bravissimo prize from the independent festival of San Marino.
The “Theater of the Absurd,” led by Solntsev, does not often delight the audience with new productions, but when this happens, each premiere invariably becomes an event in the theatrical life of the capital. The performance based on the work of Robert Thomas was shown in the fall of 2020 and earned very flattering reviews.
Personal life
But not much is known about the personal life of Gauguin Solntsev. His relationship with the female sex began to be actively discussed after his sensational announcement of marriage to 70-year-old Ekaterina Tereshkovich.
Gauguin Solntsev and his wife Ekaterina met about 4 years ago. Despite the significant age difference, the couple found common interests and continued their relationship. At the beginning of this year, Gauguin and Catherine got married, and the official registration of the marriage is scheduled for April 12, 2020.
After the wedding, the “sweet couple” spent their honeymoon in the Dominican Republic. The actor regularly posts photos and videos on his Instagram page.
What could connect him with a woman a quarter of a century older than him remains a mystery. We are not talking about fabulous wealth. Ekaterina is not a poor lady, but not a millionaire either. Perhaps - another PR. Or – Is this Love?
Showman, actor and presenter Gauguin Solntsev is a man with a difficult biography, and his personal life invariably becomes a reason for gossip and scandalous rumors. The country's main freak, master of shocking, Russian goth icon never tires of amazes the public with his changing images.
The future shocking showman was born in the capital on December 5, 1980 and received the name Ilya. Among his family, his father, an employee of the Greek Embassy, did not behave at all like a diplomat; he often beat his teacher wife, which ultimately led to divorce. During the trial, the parents were least concerned about who their 10-year-old son would end up with.
After the divorce, the boy found himself in the care of his aunt and grandmother. Sigmund Freud, if he happened to advise Gauguin Solntsev, would probably say that it was this stage of his biography that left an imprint on his subsequent personal life and prompted the young man to start a family with an elderly woman.
Gauguin in his youth
Life with her grandmother turned out to be happier than with her father and mother; she tried to raise her grandson as a comprehensively developed personality. Ilya showed creative abilities early, he sang in the choir, played in the school theater, and as a child appeared in a number of children's television programs.
When the ART Foundation (Academy of Russian Television) was established in 1994, the talented teenager was invited to head the children's jury.
After school, Solntsev had to take up network marketing in order to pay for his studies at a theater university on a commercial basis. The sales of Swiss cosmetics for the young man with a bright appearance and a well-spoken tongue were going well, but he dreamed not of business, but of the stage.
Young Gauguin and Rimma Markovna
As a result, he nevertheless entered RATI-GITIS, but not for acting, as he initially planned, but for directing. He combined his studies with work, creative and not so creative, either performing in clubs with original covers of popular songs, or working part-time as a loader. During his sabbatical leave, he managed to go to Los Angeles and complete a 3-month internship at the acting studio founded by Lee Strasberg.
Solntsev became a certified director only at the age of 28, by which time he had already established himself as a showman.
Internet freak
However, the star’s creativity is invariably overshadowed by shows and scandals; the public is much more interested in the details of fights than in successes in the theatrical field. His performance in the show “Let Them Talk” made Solntsev an Internet star: over the video “Lawyer!” the whole country laughed. Gauguin Solntsev: “Lawyer!” The star’s performance in the “Let’s Get Married” program was no less shocking, however, both the hosts and the audience at the end of the program were able to discern in Gauguin a man hiding his loneliness behind defiant behavior and ridiculous clothes.
Gauguin Solntsev in the program “Let's Get Married”
In 2020, the freak of all Rus' staged a fight on NTV and a real massacre in the show “We Speak and Show,” and in 2020 he attacked a producer who did not pay him the promised fee.
Personal life of Gauguin Solntsev
In February 2020, Solntsev shocked the public by introducing the woman who became his chosen one. The lady who became the star’s wife turned out to be Ekaterina Tereshkovich, who had crossed the sixty-year mark. According to some reports, the woman is a very wealthy person, the owner of luxury apartments and foreign accounts. But May Abrikosov from “House-2”, known as Roman Tertishny, refuted this version by posting material confirming that Ekaterina is an extra actress.
Gauguin Solntsev and Ekaterina Tereshkovich
Gauguin himself claims that his wife’s age and appearance are not important to him; their spiritual closeness is much more important. After the death of his beloved Galya, who became a victim of the Bitsa maniac, it was Catherine who supported him, and soon their relationship ceased to be friendly. After a honeymoon on the beaches of Puerto Plata, the newlyweds returned to Moscow, where they appeared in the spotlight in Andrei Malakhov's show.
In the summer of the same year, Gauguin brought out his wife, whose appearance was worked on by surgeons, although, according to many television viewers, Catherine began to look like an aged version of Gauguin himself.
Most observers agreed that the marriage of Solntsev and Tereshkovich is fictitious, conceived for the sake of PR. Gauguin and Catherine became frequent guests on various talk shows, where they staged entire performances with swearing, fights, breakups and reconciliations. Experts from Ostankino said that Gauguin’s fee for a number of performances on “Live” amounted to at least a million rubles.
Gauguin does not want to publish details about his wife's health
While the public is wondering what is wrong with Catherine, Gauguin has already commented on the publication of the photographs, calling those who did this vile people and promising to punish them for such actions. He claims that she was shaved because she neglected personal hygiene. She developed parasites and had to shave her head because of it. This was a difficult decision, Ekaterina is suffering, so publishing such photos on the Internet will hurt her even more.
He himself admitted that he is not very knowledgeable about diagnoses, but says that she, like everyone else her age, has health problems. She is engaged in treatment and rehabilitation under the supervision of doctors. He is recovering from a beauty salon scandal. Upon returning to the country, of course, he will visit her.
Last week, Gauguin Solntsev proposed his candidacy for Mhusband to Lolita Milyavskaya, commenting that she needed a fireworks man like him. Gauguin does not comment on what he will do with Catherine. He began to be annoyed by questions about his wife’s health, so in one of his last interviews he commented, saying: “She’s not dead yet.”
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Gauguin Solntsev now
Continuing to shine in the show, Gauguin began writing a book, which he began after recovering from alcohol addiction. The artist works on creating new productions for his theater, gives master classes in acting and regularly delights fans with scandalous stories. So, at the end of 2020, Solntsev said that he found his wife with her lover and kicked her out of the house. True, the lovers soon reconciled and began planning offspring. However, everything was complicated by the fact that Catherine was past her fertile age, and her daughter refused the honorable duty of bearing children. Despite this, the frantic Gauguin does not despair and conducts a survey on his Instagram, choosing names for future heirs.
