Valery Kokurin - one of the creators of a unique Vladimir school of painting. It originated in the late 1950s, and was opposed to the official art of those years. The canvases of artists were notable for bright decorative, sonorous colour, for deep, rich stroke. In planted articles Kokurin was called "abstract artist", "cosmopolitan", "impressionist." There were cases when the curators removed his works before the exhibition. But, notwithstanding the sinuosities of life, the artist has not changed his palette, retaining their identity. His canvases attracted by their surprising, not adopted in those years style of painting, by deep poetry, open polyphony of colours. Themes of his works were the unique nature of the Vladimir region, villages and small towns with their ancient streets and colorful bazars and monuments of ancient architecture - everything that is filled with a quiet life of the province, with its powerful folk culture.

The artworks of the painter are in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, State Russian Museum in Murom Historical and Art Museum, in the Vladimir Historical and Art Museum-Reserve, as well as in private collections around the world.