Monumental and philosophical Mykola Kut

This year the biennale will be held on March 29 – April 2 and gather about 120 artists from almost 40 countries. Ukraine will be represented by Mykola Kut, alias People’s Painter Mykola Kutniakhov.

Kut’s multifaceted oeuvres comprise monumental artworks executed in diverse techniques, such as cobalt glass mosaic, stained glass, encaustics, mural painting, as well as portraits, icons, and multi-figure compositions.

Mykola Kutniakhov was born and raised in Luhansk and graduated from the Kyiv State Art Institute (now the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture), where he studied under the guidance of the well-known painter and graphic artist Mykola Storozhenko. In 1989, he invented his own inimitable style of painting. Inspired by the theme of nature and landscapes, he creates monumental-space pictures, one of the particularities of which is compositional perfection and an original coloring. The master is today one of present-day Ukraine’s few artists who deal with the theme of wide-plane landscapes. Many Ukrainian art experts classify his style as unique in image, which has had no analogues in the history of classical, modern, and contemporary art.

Each of Kutniakhov’s studies has a perfect generalization even at the initial stage, which allows him to enlarge a study picture to considerably bigger formats later in the studio – be it large-size canvases or walls of architectural structures.

Photo replica from Mykola KUT’s Facebook page

“In the person of Mykola Kutniakhov (Kut), Ukrainian figurative art has an uncommon and original artist-thinker who not only paves the way for a new interpretation of landscape, but also gets back to its religious sources. He uses his oeuvre to fill the dangerous spiritual vacuum that has formed in contemporary Ukrainian painting in both genre-wise and world-view dimensions,” art expert Stanislav Bushak told Den (see No. 169, 2012). “The master’s oeuvre is multifaceted: it comprises monumental works executed in various techniques (mosaic, stained glass, encaustics, mural painting), portraits, icons, and multi-figure compositions. But landscape is the master’s favorite genre in which he embodied most fully his life philosophy. Genre landscape can arouse not only chamber intimate or bucolic-idyllic sentiments, but also deep philosophical reflections, important civic motifs, and acute social problems.”

Kut’s easel and monumental artworks, done in very diverse techniques, are kept at Ukraine’s museums and in foreign private collections. They also adorn squares and facades of architectural structures in Ukraine and abroad.