"Graphics" anniversary exhibition of Alexander Makarov

A country road, lying among fragrant herbs and forest flowers, is hidden in the fog. In the morning dew, she turns to a wide field, over which a rainbow will soon shine. The creative search of the artist Alexander Makarov leads to the expanses of the Omsk Irtysh region. Through Western Siberia, past the cliffs, bays and bays of the Far East, along the hilly Sakhalin, he goes by improving his skills.

Graphics that require thoughtfulness and accuracy has become a conscious choice of the artist. The first series of graphic sheets "Soldiers" was made in pencil and was born while serving in the army. It combines genre compositions, self-portraits and portraits of colleagues. Most of the works in this series are decorative and full of details, with a rich tone. The audience warmly received the paintings at the exhibitions, and the artist’s creative life developed rapidly.

A trip from the Irtysh River Shipping Company to the North of Siberia in 1977 presented new subjects.

Siberian working days, the life of a common man, portraits of rivermen, landscapes of Salekhard, Khanty-Mansiysk, Nadym appeared in the compositions. At the same time, the first business trip to the Chelyuskinskaya House of Creativity took place. The possibilities of printed graphics captured Alexander Makarov. The artist tried his hand at etching, aquatint, but for almost a decade lithography really became close to him. Each return to "Chelyuskinskaya" he improved his pictorial language and imbued with the technical possibilities of lithography: gentle tone transitions, a combination of a soft pencil drawing with uniform fills. It was lithography that brought neat, unobtrusive color to the artist’s work, which perfectly conveyed the mood of the “Summer” series (1980). This series is an appeal deep into oneself, to a bygone childhood through a look at a little son. Four sheets (“Kite”, “Summer”, “Haytime”, “Rainbow”) are each made in its own local color, and the rest of the colors are muted, as if covered with a haze of memories. But the more tangible is the enthusiastic feeling of freedom captured by the author at the very edge of summer, when ears of wheat are ripe and fluffy dandelions burn like white lights.

The turning point in the work of Alexander Makarov was a trip to the Far East and Sakhalin Island. Sakhalin landscapes settled in the artist’s heart and led to the creation of the author’s mixed media, based on pastels and watercolors with the addition of tempera and colored pencils. With all its expressive virtues, the laconic and strict lithography could not convey the subtlest shades of color of the cliffs immersed in haze and the reflections of the clouds illuminated by the setting sun in the smooth water. Cold gray-silvery fogs, which captivated the artist so much, low heavy clouds lying on the tops of the mountains, are already depicted in the Sakhalin Motifs series (1991), made in mixed media. The rich possibilities of pastels made it possible to achieve true realism and turned Alexander Makarov’s eyes on the landscapes of his small homeland.

The taiga of the Muromtsevsky district, the villages of Tarmakla and Kondratyevo, the old duckweed and country roads turned into an inexhaustible source of inspiration for him at the dawn of the new millennium. Places close to many Omsk residents and to this day occupy the artist. And the pastels and mixed media found in a long search go next to the master, perfectly helping to express his author’s vision. Serialization has gone from creativity, each work is now an ideally completed image.

Starting with a graphite pencil, Alexander Makarov came to the complex and rich colors of pastels. Having gone to explore the North of Siberia and the exciting Far East, he returned and found the charm

in the dense forests of the Omsk region. Everything that is dear to the heart is near. You just need to let the subtle beauty of your native land into your soul. This is the true path of the artist. We invite you to walk along it at a retrospective exhibition dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Alexander Makarov.