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 the theater and especially by the theater set designer Andris Freibergs. Until 1993, he lived in Leningrad, where he started painting and scenography in the theater.

He participated in group exhibitions, including the 6th Exhibition of the Association of Experimental Fine Arts in 1985 at the Leningrad Youth House.

Since 1987 he has often visited London, where his solo exhibitions were held. Ivan Kochkarev's work was marked in the Independent Newspaper in 1988. In 1993 he moved to Moscow, where he is collaborating with the Boris Yukhananov Theater. He is a production designer at the Stanislavsky Electrotheater. From 2005 to 2023, he participated in the group exhibitions "Postcards" held by Vera Pogodina Gallery.

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