Mural Landscape
Solo exhibition of muralist Mykola Kutniakhov opened at the Central House of Artists in Kyiv on September 20
“Art – the Spiritual Code” is the name of the project that will be on display until September 30 at the Central House of Artists on Lvivska Square. Its author is a muralist Mykola Kutniakhov that is why the exhibition combines both painting and various mural projects of the author. At the same time, it is a combination of a new series of artist’s paintings with the retrospective of his most significant pieces from earlier periods of his creative work.
“The phenomenon of Mykola Kutniakhov is that he is a muralist by profession and having great achievements in this field, working with architectural forms and large walls he transfers the muralist’s way of thinking onto, seemingly, intimate and chamber, purely easel art of landscape painting. Through this his work becomes global, and truly comical,” said Volodymyr KOZAR, artist and art critic.
Kutniakhov was born in Luhansk. In 1967 he graduated from Art School and later from Art College in Luhansk. The next stage in artist’s education took place in Kyiv. He graduated from Kyiv State Art Institute (now Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture), where his teacher was the famous painter and graphic Mykola Storozhenko.
After the wave of repressions against National Renaissance destroyed brilliant representatives of Ukrainian art, the new surge among artists in Lviv and Kyiv took place in the 1960s and the 1970s. Since then the connection between the generations continued with no breaks along the way. For example, Storozhenko, who was Kutniakhov’s teacher, in his turn, was a student of a famous artist Tetiana Yablonska. No wonder Kutniakhov says: “Art is the spiritual code of my people sent into eternity.”
The artist also combines creative work with teaching. Right after Kutniakhov graduated from the institute he taught at Kyiv Art School No. 6. Since 1991 he was the head of this school. In 2001 he was appointed the director of the Herman Zhukovsky Art School No. 6 where the teaching of painting craft is combined with aesthetic education. The artist always pays attention to the search of new ways in educating the young generation in his articles, radio and television appearances, and at thematic seminars.
“In Mykola Kutniakhov Ukrainian art has an outstanding, original artist and thinker, who is not only paving the way for a new understanding of landscape creation, but is also turning back to its religious sources. With his creative work he fills that dangerous spiritual vacuum that appeared in modern Ukrainian painting, both in plane of a genre and in philosophical dimension,” said art critic Stanislav BUSHAK. “Creative work of Kutniakhov is versatile, it includes mural works made in various techniques (mosaic, stained glass, encaustic, and wall painting), portraits, icons, and multi-figure compositions. Still landscape is the favorite genre of the artist where he most fully can express philosophy of his worldview. Genre landscapes can be not only of intimate and chamber or bucolic and idyllic character, it can also contain deep philosophical reflection, important civic motives, and topical social problems.”
Easel and mural works made by Kutniakhov in various techniques are stored in museums of Ukraine, as well as in private collections abroad, and also decorate squares and facades of architectural structures in Ukraine and abroad.
Exhibition “Art – the Spiritual Code” is open for visitors from 12:00 to 19:00 and is closed on Tuesday.
