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 In
our days you can not often meet the painter who devotedly
loves nature. Artists, sculptors, black-and-white
artists, monumentalists seek not to fall behind a
crazy speed of electronic age and often work in computer-internet
regime forgetting that they tread the ground, not
noticing spring flowers and smells of the first rain,
apathetic looking at multicolor rainbow which decorates
clear sky. It is useless to compassionate these Art
Progs - they will be offended and you will make enemies.
Therefore it is a high day for me to meet an artists
who doesn't want to put up with cruelty and merciiessness
of this century and brings to my studio the creation
beauty which is imprinted in a picture thanks to his
skills and talent, beauty which charms us by its diversity,
soleness and calms our strained spirits.
I always fear when young artists rush into extremes,
follow postmodernism and deface already deformed reality.
Women-artists shock me particularly: they try not
to fall behind representatives of the sterner sex
in conquest of heights of abstract and inhuman art.
It is offensive that modern Amazons change their heaven-born
destination lor fussy life of galleries and salons.
That is why I highly appreciate modesty and inward
harmony of women-artists wedded to classic ideals.
Not every of them will achieve suc-i :ess and glory
which follow creative work of Helen Homanova. Nataly
Nesterova or Tamara Yufa (Chvanova), hut they are
able to give us pleasance by their works. ¦\nd this
is the main content of art process.
Olga Kostenko was born in the Ukraine, in Zhitomir,
.11 id started learning in Odessa. Mildness, lyricism
and warmth are from these regions; but ease and translu-cency
of brushwork was acquired in Moscow theatrical and
art college where she worked a lot and even specialized
in watercoior technique.
When I studied works of a young paintress Olga Kostenko
it was like a touch of breeze which caresses you in
morning hours when the sun is so kind. I didn't find
in her works any desire to amuse spectators by singularity
of brushwork, inthcateness of composition or by invention
of new forms. Olga Kostenko has the ability to penetrate
to the very core of nature magnificence, ability which
is proper only to women, and on her canvases she tries
to imprint everything she was impressed by: beauty
of wild wood, changeable play of lights on the surface
of ponds and rivers, she admires affluence of colors
and nuances in bunches of flowers and dissolves in
worm air of seaside villages. How delicately paintress
feels aromas of spring gardens and how much tranquil
melancholy in her autumn landscapes when Nature and
Man say good bye to divine summer holidays!
"What happiness to be in harmony with oneself,
that means to be in harmony with God, with whole wold,
with those who are near us. This is not always and
not forever. But this is the mood these pictures were
being painted." These simple but pectoral words
is an impressive epigraph to her creative work.
Savva Yamshikov,
Honored Art Worker of Russia
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