Exhibition of works by Olga and Vladimir Zhilinsky Automatic translate

The Russian Academy of Arts presents an exhibition of works by corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Arts Olga Dmitrievna Zhilinskaya and her son, artist and restorer Vladimir Mikhailovich Zhilinsky. The project continues a series of academic exhibitions of creative dynasties and demonstrates paintings and graphic works from different years.

Olga Zhilinskaya was born in 1954 in the family of a famous painter, academician of the Russian Academy of Arts Dmitry Zhilinsky and sculptor Nina Zhilinskaya, whose works were included in the golden fund of Russian art. Having graduated from the Moscow Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov in 1977, where she studied in the workshop of K. D. Tutevol, she became a regular participant in art exhibitions. Researchers of the artist’s work write: “Succumbing to the temptation to establish family continuity, many critics rush to find in Zhilinskaya’s paintings the influence of her father, Dmitry Zhilinsky. But upon a closer look, it becomes obvious that these are completely different artistic phenomena.” Olga Dmitrievna’s visual language is independent and rather goes back to Aristarkh Lentulov, as evidenced by the internal excitement, theatrical constructiveness, and displacement of spaces and volumes. Her works also reveal her talent as a muralist, capable of creating paintings that are organically included in the architectural solutions of public spaces. The author talks about the personal and intimate in the format of easel painting with powerful color planes and bold generalized modeling. Private experience is thus generalized to the cosmic level and clearly dominates the collective, public, which can be seen in such works as: “Tornado” (2013), “Happiness” (2016), “Ay, Moscow” (2020).

Her paintings, independent in form, deeply personal in content, organically live in time, rooted in their era. Without abandoning traditional genre forms, love and devotion to living nature, she is an example of an artist with acutely modern plastic thinking, a relevant understanding of space, form, and color. Her works, rich in associations, are attractive for their picturesqueness, compositional intrigue, and special personal intonation. The master’s canvases require thoughtful viewing and rethinking; you need to return to them several times in order to reveal the layers of meaning embedded in the visual images.

Vladimir Zhilinsky (Khodanov) was born in 1983 into the family of the painter Olga Zhilinskaya and the priest Mikhail Khodanov. Growing up in a unique artistic environment, he inherited the desire to be himself and the need to fully belong to creativity. He studied at the Moscow State Academic Art School in memory of 1905, where he received the profession of a restorer. Later he graduated from the Faculty of Scenography of the Russian Institute of Theater Arts, and in the 2010s he began to study digital technologies in art. Collaborating with many Russian theater and film directors, he took part in the creation of a number of stage designs, including the video project “The Path to Scriabin”, created specifically for the concert dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the composer at the A. N. Scriabin Memorial Museum in Moscow (2015).

The works of Vladimir Zhilinsky interact with each other, involving the viewer in a dialogue about the enduring values ​​of man. The master creates urban landscapes, graphic portraits and paintings on religious subjects, choosing his own unique style for each artistic solution. The mood and semantic context are conveyed to them with the help of a smooth, flowing pictorial line or, conversely, with long, confident and sometimes expressive strokes. Art critics, describing the artist’s talent, note: “If Khodanov’s graphics speak of the fate of a person “thrown” into the world, then painting acts as this world - an external frame. Like the surf of the sea, the rustle of leaves, the change of day and night - the clock ticks indifferently, “the race comes and goes, but the Earth remains forever.” The thread of the stroke unfolds in the present, glides into the future…” His works are united by the special cinematic view of the author, who takes into account the most important things. The master experiments with the formats of his works, creating both chamber and large-format works, which gives him freedom of execution. Delicately complementing and transforming reality at his own discretion and almost imperceptibly for the viewer, he depicts reality through the prism of his original artistic vision.

In academic halls, the works of Olga and Vladimir Zhilinsky create a dialogue, reflecting, despite all stylistic differences, an internal essential closeness. The works presented at the exhibition demonstrate the deep individuality of the artists and at the same time the continuous development of the chosen line in art.

The text is based on articles by Boris Salakhov.