The Russian Academy Of Arts

Organized to mark the 60th anniversary of the Honored Artist of Russia, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Arts Oleg Aradushkin, the exhibition at the Russian Academy of Arts features over 300 paintings and graphic works by the artist.

Oleg Aradushkin is known in Russia and abroad as a distinguished and original master working in easel painting and graphic art. He was born in Podolsk, Moscow Region in 1951. He graduated from the Moscow State Academy Art College in Memory of the Year of 1905 and Gerasimov State Institute of Cinematography. As an artist-director Oleg Aradushkin was involved in the creation of a number of feature films. In 1977 he became a member of the Union of Artists. His works are in collections of many museums and galleries, as well as in private collections in Russia and other countries.

The landscape is one of the most important trends in Oleg Aradushkin’s work. He paints the nature of the Russian province, his native Moscow area, the middle zone of Russia, the Russian North, the architecture of old towns and monuments of old Russian culture.

Each series of his works has a distinctive stylistics and emotional mood. In his expressive landscapes-still lifes Oleg Aradushkin depicts the colorful polychromy of the surrounding world. The artist emphasizes the plasticity of the form, brilliantly generalizes it and adds new facets to the subjects portrayed. The light penetrating through the open windows overlooking a garden transforms ordinary and everyday things making them extraordinary beautiful. Among his favorite motifs are apples – generous gifts of the autumn. Following the best traditions of the Russian landscape, he has a special reverential sensitivity to the life of nature and almost impressionistic attitude to the portrayal of the play of light.

Of major interest are his paintings dedicated to the Russian North. “All people have their Promised Land, which they are mysteriously connected with for all their life. For me such a land is the Solovetsky Islands” – says Oleg Aradushkin. The tempera technique preferred for these works reminds of the lost old frescoes. In his canvases there is a striking reality in the depiction of a church without a dome and cross turned into a prison, an abandoned church in Varzuga, frames of boats on a bank and moorages without ships. These pictures-reflections express the artist’s inner world, the circle of his thoughts and view of the history of Russia.

Oleg Aradushkin’s works devoted to France are distinguished by his strive for broadening his pictorial language and its enrichment by new colors. In 1975, then a student studying under P.I. Pashkevich, Oleg Aradushkin took part in the work on the film based on Stendhal’s novel “The Red and the Black” and made a series of sketches for decorations of the 19th century Paris. It was his first acquaintance with the city.

Only many years later he went to Paris where he produced a vast series of townscapes depicting Paris streets and squares, the Seine river embankment, la Cite, Monmartre, the old district of St. Germain, everyday life of the Parisians. He was inspired by everything: roofs and attics of the houses, rain in the Rivoli street, views of Notre-Dame, street lamps and the city at night.

In his Paris series his palette is extremely refined and full of half-tints and shades of the light and air environment. The pictorial manner in his landscapes of Normandy is expressive and free, we almost sense the scent of the sea in the air of the coastal towns. France has become for the artist a source of new inspirations and creative discoveries.

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