Ivan Kochkarev was born in 1961 in Leningrad.
He lives in Moscow and London. He grew up in Riga (Latvia), studied at the Riga Academy of Arts. His development as an artist was influenced by theater and especially by theater set designer Andris Freibergs. Until 1993 he lived in Leningrad, where he started painting and scenography in theater.

Since 1987 he has often visited London, where his solo exhibitions were held. Ivan Kochkarev's work was marked at the Independent Newspaper in 1988.

In 1993 he moved to Moscow, where he is collaborating with Boris Yukhananov Theater. He is a production designer at the Stanislavsky Electrotheater.

Ivan Kochkarev's paintings are complex in design, minimalistic in depiction and cosmogonic in content.