ALMATY – A jubilee exhibition of Alexander Yermolenko was held recently at the State Abilkhan Kasteyev Museum, in which the artist presented about a hundred of his works.
His classmates, teachers, colleagues who came to congratulate the artist on the jubilee event appreciated his works and stressed that the best traditions of artistic graphics continued.
His landscape paintings “Gardens of Talgar,” “Old Street in Verny,” “River Ili” and “Suinshi” are deep, bright and clean, and the still life pictures are filled with a breath of antiquity.
“I tell about the Seven Rivers and many other corners of our nature, which the artists seldom painted. Many artists work with the landscape, but they spend little time in the open air, that’s why sometimes it looks superficial. The work in the open air educates and gives positive energy for the whole winter. Paintings drawn in nature convey the fragrance of the grass, earth, wind, the whisper of trees, streams and bird song. That’s why I love the steppe, mountains, desert and fields,” Yermolenko said.
The artist is not inspired by the “very green” summer but prefers the fall with its poetic multicolour maturity of nature, flying gossamers and the spicy heat are much closer to him.
After graduation from the Kazakh Abai Pedagogical Institute and military service he worked as a designer at the Department of Culture in Talgar town. In 1987, he founded an art studio and was involved in design and advertising. Then he took up painting professionally and taught academic drawing at the institute he graduated from, then painting and drawing at the Hanshan Pedagogical University (China), where he was awarded the title “Professor of Painting.” Yermolenko is a participant in various exhibitions and a member of the Artists’ Union of Kazakhstan.
“First of all, we teach others to see the world differently. Speaking of the Russian landscape painting school, I want to remember Alexey Savrasov who made a great contribution to the rise of realistic full-scale landscape painting. I admire the genius Fyodor Vasilyev who lived a short but bright life and, of course, Isaac Levitan. These are the three giants for me in landscape painting,” continued Yermolenko.
The artist works with various techniques of painting and drawing, creating, along with portraits and still-life pictures, nude compositions and abstract works. His paintings are in the museums of more than 20 countries.
