My Heroes

ECCE HOMO

Painting by Valery Koroshilov
2010

Oil on linen, 100 x 100 cm

The Passion of the Painter (after Zurbaran)

The Passion of the Painter, 2010

Painting by Valery Koroshilov. Oil on linen, 190 x 160 cm

 

St Serapion, 1628

Painting by Francisco Zurbaran. Oil on canvas, 120 x 103 cm

New Paintings by Valery Koroshilov: Exhibition in Baker Tilly London Feb-Apr 2010

The Origins of Argument

Oil on linen, 100 x 140 cm

Daniel

Oil on linen, 100 x 100 cm

Woman in White

Oil on linen, 100 x 100 cm

Self Portrait No. 48

Oil on linen, 100 x 100 cm

On painting

It's tough. No one needs a painter, yet everyone needs a painter.

One of the key things a painter needs to get started is knowledge. Not an academic knowledge, but the knowledge based on a real desire to be curious and wanting to find out everything. A good painter has to be willing to listen and learn from any situation, however trivial. Develop a habit of looking at everything that happens to you as a ‘material' to be used.

A good painter studies art passionately and thoroughly, and if you have never experienced the thrill of a great artist’s exhibition that grips you from beginning to end, then chances are you won't be able to produce one either. The inspiration is good, but so is the structure. Prepare a plan for a series of pictures, or an exhibition. It’s always good to get a feedback from an experienced and objective person on the merits of the idea before you spend a year painting it. So drafting a proposal is a good idea. Think of it as a business plan. You wouldn't start a business without a plan, so why a painting suit? You can always review it.

Knowledge, enthusiasm, inspiration and curiosity, plus an ability to spend endless time researching, comparing, experimenting, trying and hopefully, enjoying the process. There will be lots of ideas to pursue, but not enough time. Don't get sidetracked, because chances are you'll find an even better idea elsewhere, which will distract you from your primary objective.  File it. Come back to it later and work on it then. No one knows it's there. It will keep.

Once you painted it, you need to sell it. Now that's the hard part. Make contacts. Make people aware of you and your painting. Expose. Join artists’ groups, exhibit where you can, promote your painting on the net. You will begin to hear what works and what doesn’t, and you will get some unexpected offers.

There is no evidence that a good quality painting will always be discovered, appreciated, published, and sold eventually. It is hard to get an agent, even harder to get a gallery to consider one seriously. So you do have to be very proactive and even if you only ever imagined you'd be a painter, you need to be flexible, - painting commercially, exhibiting with whoever invites, giving lessons, etc. A decade ago Lucien Freud looked down on a commission to paint the portrait of the Queen, but four decades ago the same man was painting lilies on the bathroom walls of dukes and duchesses.

You will also need to build a portfolio of paintings shown elsewhere, so when you do make a contact with a gallery of your dreams, they know you are a professional. If you impress them, they will help you. Eventually, you will learn to work faster and be friendlier to criticism. You will know ‘this will sell’.

As for now, all you can do is make sure of one thing. The day your painting finds the right wall, it is as good as it can only be.

Architectural Impressions: Organic Form

The suite of oil paintings entitled "architectural impressions" reflect my long preoccupation with the phenomenon of Organic Form in the built environment. The following notes were written for the Catalogue of the exhibition to accompany the pictures. 

The aesthetic quality of an organic form seems to be directly determined by its inherent metaphor and appeals both to understanding and emotional perception. The extent of such understanding is determined by the extent to which one is open to a new metaphor and ready to link an organic form and existing understanding of the language intended by the architect. The quicker the metaphor speaks for itself, the greater the degree of recognition and acceptance, and the less the need for any explanations.

In order to understand an organic form one has to use a different, alternative way of cognition of the world taking as a basis neither reason nor logic. It relies on intuition, inspiration, and revelation. That is why this method, probably, is so powerful. The knowing and the knowable do not need to be in the opposition – like in the rational approach. Due to the intuition they amalgamate into one whole, and then, through the inner vision the vital energy of the moving world is transforming into an organic creation. Obviously, it may have some aesthetic or functional meaning, but still the main purpose is to reflect the juxtaposition of the two worlds at the extreme point of their existence. As a result, the sensation will be something lofty, dramatic, and even religious about an object of knowing as a whole.

At the basis of many of the organic principles there is an understanding of the Nature as a divine plan, and of a building created by the natural methods as a spiritual entity interacting with the people who use it. Therefore, the best way left for the people is to preserve our interest in the naturalness of the environment. Revealing this quality one can discover new hints for the future, and achieve fresh insights regarding how to live in harmony with oneself and the Universe of which one is an integral part. In such a context an architect takes the role of a mediator in transmission of vital energy and spiritual essence.

It appears, an organic form has a potential of transforming any closed space into a living entity that continually gives part of its vital energy to the people who use it. In contrast to that, a non-organic form, for example, - the one based on a rectangular shape, - dramatically reduces the amount of this vital energy.

The organic architecture is not at all new. Quite the opposite. It’s the timeless way of building that has deep roots in the human experience and in the ethnic traditions of natural building in cultures across the world. 

BB: THE BIG BIRD

I am currently involved with a large-size mural project which has a working title “Artist’s Studio”.

Studio is a subject used traditionally to transform a Still Life into a Genre painting, or a Decorative Composition. Studios are normally cluttered, full of things, teeming with objects. Different objects displayed randomly, or orderly, create different planes. All these shapes and colours, textures and surfaces, lights and shadows - develop in their complexity lives of their own, each one different, none matching the next one. However, the ultimate aim for the painter is to attempt to create a unified pictorial space.

While sketching, I looked at the late Georges Braque’s Studios for inspiration, and was puzzled and delighted by the simplicity and greatness of his invention.

The painting of space has been Braque’s main preoccupation for years. He discovered that a Bird In Flight, by its very nature, animates the spatial element and somehow makes it more real.

That’s how Braque describes the result: “As I painted Studios, I was gripped by a kind of jubilation… I was in a happy state of someone to whom is revealed the harmony of objects between themselves and with man. The objects faded away, leaving me with the imprint, the echo of their poetic relationships. They no longer existed. My work was enlightened and it enlightened me. Everything became simple and full of meaning.”

So, a Bird In Flight makes it all happen. Interestingly, it animates the space in any disguise: as a flat silhouette, a toy model, an Origami, a ‘real’ Bird, a picture of a Bird, or even a kite. Associations are plentiful: with a flight, freedom and hope.  Moving smoothly across the pictorial space it appears firmly positive and optimistic, light and graceful, encouraging and uplifting. Or in Braque’s own words, it makes the painted space at ease with itself, and very easy to live with.