Kharkov

More Kharkov art:
Yesterday evening I called Nellyy, the art student I met here before. She said we could meet in the city centre to go to an opening of an artist in cafe Barista, a rather hip western bar. Artist on show was Denis Chernov, who even has a personal website: www.chernov-art.com. A lot of western colleagues will find his work is very 'old school', and so do I. But once more, I was intensely amazed by the technical skills and the patience and passion of this artist. Really, you cannot say these people are not truly dedicated. I personally, cannot escape some fundamental rethinking.

Denis Chernov (graphite pencil on paper)

Moreover, at the opening of Chernov, Nellyy introduced me to Artem Smorodin and his girlfriend Macha (also a painter). Hearing about my project, they invited me to visit their workspace. Some surprising watercolors were revealed to me, made last week, when Artem had staid for 8 days in Crimea. He had made at least 50 'etudes' there! Also he showed me some other work, made in February in Carpatians, where the frost had influenced the water on his works. He also explained to me that he is using these etudes really as a research into the technical possibilities of watercolor. He wants to discover all the secrets of this technique. And then he wants to think about painting other subjects. This very classic but focusing way of going outside and painting these marvelous landscapes made me wonder. Also the knowledge this guy has about colours...
If you would like to know how much one of these 'etudes' would cost: between 15 and 100 dollars.

 

Artem and Macha