Featured Artist Sergey Kolodyazhniy

Ukranian artist Sergey Kolodyazhniy presents a beautifully rendered and classical portfolio of floral and still life paintings. Enjoy his work and find more on his website.

 

 

My name is Sergey. Born in 1966 in Ukraine, I’ve loved drawing since childhood. My favorite subject at school was drawing, and I won first place in a children’s drawing competition—one of my earliest memories. I continued participating in various art contests throughout my school years. In 4th grade, I entered a children’s art school, followed by an art and pedagogical college. I then worked as a drawing and drafting teacher.

 

 

About 30 years ago, I decided to make painting my main job, not just a hobby. For years, I lacked a dedicated workspace, either renting temporary rooms or painting on an easel in my bedroom.

 

 

I traveled extensively, participating in seasonal holiday artist fairs, annual local exhibitions, art fairs, and galleries. This contributed to my growth as an artist, helping form my experience and preferences in painting.

 

 

I’ve explored various mediums – charcoal, watercolor, pencil, and even linocut. However, I ultimately settled on oil painting, which offers more opportunities for self-expression and creativity. Later, I studied digital art in college, gaining knowledge in programs like Photoshop and Corel Painter. These tools allow me to experiment with sketches and find unique color solutions for paintings. I also bought a good camera, using my nature photos from travels to create sketches for future paintings.

 

 

Living on the seashore for several years, I painted seascapes, selling them to tourists. I try to capture the feeling of a sea breeze and romantic sunsets in warm colors. The ever-changing moods of the sea provide endless inspiration.

 

 

Simultaneously, I began focusing more on still life. In art school, we studied Dutch still life techniques, learning about 17th-18th century Dutch masters. Our art history lessons, taught by a former Hermitage employee, were particularly fascinating, filled with intriguing details about artists’ lives and masterpiece creation stories.

 

 

This inspired me to apply these techniques to modern still life paintings. I source fruits from local farmers’ markets, sometimes painting them from life. My goal is not just to depict ordinary objects, but to bring them to life, giving them character through color, light, and shape. I use various combinations of golden and dark blue shades, along with contrast, to convey expressiveness and sophistication to everyday fruits. My still life paintings in the realist style invite viewers to appreciate the beauty in everyday life.

 

 

The theme of Dutch still life wasn’t chosen randomly. Thanks to the Dutch masters’ creative heritage, each object is multi-layered and carries certain subtexts. In various cultures, seemingly ordinary fruits have deep mythological meanings. For instance, apples symbolize temptation in Christian tradition, while representing love and beauty in Greek mythology. Pomegranates symbolize fertility, oranges represent good luck in Chinese culture, and grapes have various meanings across different traditions.

 

 

As a full-time artist, most of my works are now in private collections. This gives me great motivation to continue creating new projects and exploring themes and techniques in painting.

 

Sergey Kolodyazhniy invites you to follow him on  Facebook and Instagram.

 

 

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