Painter creates art on the canvas
Mark Radionov paints one of his works of art. • Photos Submitted
By Tom Victoria
Mark Radionov captures the beauty of the world with his brush strokes.
The 26-year-old Ukranian is a painter, creating gorgeous artwork on the canvas.
"I like my paintings to be expressive, to have some emotion, give aesthetic pleasure," Mark said. "Maybe suggest a story."
His paintings range from a brightly colored little girl in a windy field to romping bunnies in a scene rendered in black and gold on an oval canvas.
Unlike some of his peers, Mark enjoys the classic take on painting as an aesthetic pleasure.
“A lot of people think art is not supposed to be aesthetic,” he said, referring to the starker interpretation of what constitutes artistry. “Look at classical statues and paintings. It’s supposed to be beautiful.”
Mark does not agree that all pieces represent art.
"Not everyone would agree with aesthetics being the purpose for art," he said. "Not everyone feels the need to be expressive to qualify as art. They can just put a banana on a wall and call it art."
Mark paints in a wide range of styles.
Mark cited an example where the line begins to be blurred.
"I saw this video of a man making hyper-realistic drawings," he said. "They are basically copies of existing photos. He doesn't try to hide it. He takes these photos, edits to black-and-white, adds some contrast in photoshop and then brakes them up by grid and copies little by little on paper. I find that to be just doing printer's work. People find it to be impressive although I don't even see much skill there. That's just precise copying of squares and takes a few paintings to master. Try learning to paint a portrait from a live model in just a few paintings."
Mark said such works are not paintings.
"My art teacher said that each portrait you make is also a self-portrait in a way," he said. "You put something of yourself in that canvas and brushstrokes. But I believe it’s not the case when you copy squares of a photo. It’s just as otherworldly as any other photo.
One of Mark's paintings depicts a girl in a field.
“You look at it through the lens, and that feeling stays even in a painting. It’s hyper realistic but it doesn’t feel real. Some paintings you see in museums are obviously not as detailed as a photo where you can see each and every pore and wrinkle, yet painted portraits can feel alive and present, almost like they are in the same room as you and you can touch them."
Mark explained realism does not equate to art.
"My works are more on the spectrum between impressionism and abstraction," he said. "I like it dreamy, emotional and textured. Yes, I still use photographic references but I never just copy them. My works don’t even look realistic. I translate what I see and add a bit of myself. I don’t think a photo has the same capacity to be as personal."
Mark said other things are also confused with art.
"People use the word art for everything now," he said. "As an example, there was this initiative where they set up the flags of the countries where homosexuality is punishable by law in Amsterdam for the pride week. A similar thing was done by a person making a large dress from a patchwork of those flags. I’d say that’s definitely more of an activism rather than art. Yet now, they say it’s a performance art.
Mark uses oval canvases as well.
Since I’m from Ukraine there was another one: in a contemporary art gallery, they filled a room with demolition rubble and put several screens with videos of dead Ukrainian soldiers in the war in the east of Ukraine. The point of that was kind of reminding people it’s not over. Because we’ve been having normal life since 2016, but the war and casualties have never stopped since 2014. People basically forgot there’s war with Russia and act like it’s not there. It’s surreal. Yet I struggle understand how that room was art even though I find it valuable. I almost feel like we need another word for it. They’re just changing the definition. It’s not necessarily art."
Although Mark prefers to employ a wide range of styles, he is resolved to cling to one for each exhibit.
“You have to be super recognizable,” he explained. “If I want to be represented by a gallery, I have to have the same style. The exhibit is basically a novel. Each painting is a chapter.”
However, Mark will never restrict his art to one style aside from exhibits.
“I really don’t want to paint one thing over my whole life,” he said.
Mark won’t be able to sustain himself by selling paintings in his homeland.
“There’s almost no market here whatsoever,” he said.
Mark said Western Europeans are the ones who comprise his target audience.
“They’re rich enough and interested in art,” he said. “There’s nothing like that in Ukraine.”
Mark said Ukrainians would be interested in work that was trendy if at all. Thankfully, he does not have to rely on his customers being local.
“TikTok it has been a savior,” Mark said.
The link to Mark's website: https://markispainting.wordpress.com/