Exhibition of works by Oleg Aradushkin

The Russian Academy of Arts presents an exhibition of works by the Honored Artist of Russia, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Arts Oleg Afanasyevich Aradushkin. The exhibition will include more than 50 paintings and graphic series.

An artist with a wide creative range, a recognized master of easel graphics and painting, he has an original visual language and an individual signature. In his work, O. Aradushkin gives preference to the landscape genre. His love for the Russian province, where the peculiarities of the national character are most clearly manifested, was reflected in a number of works: “Spring on Trubezh”, “Danilov Monastery. Before the Storm”, “On Pakhra”, “White Sea”, “Transfiguration Monastery”, “Evening on the Kama” and others. He writes about the nature of central Russia and the Russian North, the architecture of ancient cities and monuments of ancient Russian culture.

At the exhibition, next to chamber works, canvases with a monumental sound are presented, marked by the generality of plastic solutions and the dramatic intensity of the images. Aradushkin admits: “Even when I work from life, I think in associations.” This probably applies primarily to paintings dedicated to the harsh nature of the Russian North, and to the “Solovetsky Islands” cycle. He was 17 years old when he first came there and saw the monastery, which became a center of spiritual attraction for the artist. The monastery walls have witnessed many tragic events in Russian history. “All people have their own Promised Land, with which they are connected in a mystical, mysterious way all their lives. For me, such a land is the Solovetsky Islands,” says the author. The tempera technique in which these works were made is reminiscent of ancient frescoes that have not survived. Reflective paintings reflect the spiritual world of the graphic artist, the range of his thoughts, and reveal his view of the historical path of Russia.

Through nuances of color and complex light-air relationships, the artist conveys the changing state of nature at different times of the year and day. In his paintings, a specific landscape motif, be it the image of a blooming garden or spring flood, fallen leaves or snow-covered village huts, expresses the feelings and moods of the master himself. A deeply personal attitude is marked by sincere, full of lyricism and harmony, subtle in color works dedicated to his “small homeland” - the Moscow region (“At the Dacha”, “Trading Rows. Old Podolsk”, “Lilac”), where the author’s emotions and the life of nature live in organic unity. He emphasizes the plasticity of form, knows how to generalize it, and make objects “sparkle” with new facets. The light pouring from the open windows into the garden transforms the most ordinary, everyday, well-known things, making them fantastically beautiful, filling our troubled world with the joy of being. Among the favorite motifs are ripe apples - the generous gifts of autumn. Following the best traditions of Russian landscape painting, the artist knows how to see and convey the true beauty of his native land, even in the simplest motif, and create an inspired image of Russian nature.

O. Aradushkin likes to work in series, on several canvases at the same time. For each episode, he finds his own stylistic solution and his own emotional structure. The desire to expand his own visual language, enrich it with new colors, and the search for new pictorial and plastic solutions distinguish the master’s works dedicated to Italy. In his Italian series, the color scheme is complexly developed, refined, based on halftones, nuances of the light-air environment. In the expressive canvases, marked by a free pictorial style, we seem to feel the smell that permeates the air. Creative trips to France, Italy, and Germany became a source for the creation of new graphic and pictorial works of the artist.

Oleg Afanasyevich Aradushkin was born in 1951 in Podolsk, Moscow region. A graduate of the Moscow Art School in Memory of 1905, in 1976 he graduated with honors from the art department of the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography, where he studied under the guidance of professors G. I. Epishin and P. I. Pashkevich. As a production designer, he took part in the creation of a number of feature films at the Central Film Studio for Children’s and Youth Films named after M. Gorky. These include “Red and Black” (1975), “Bear in the North” (1978), “The Kidnapping of the Century” (1980), “Return of the Resident” (1981), “Comet” (1982) and others. In 1977 he was admitted to the Union of Artists. The author conducted teaching work at the art department of VGIK, taught drawing, painting and composition, and was an associate professor (1996-2000). His works are kept in many museums, galleries and private collections in Russia and abroad.