Visceral Response

When I have the opportunity to view paintings or photos I am always drawn to pictures of trees with a pathway and some light shining through. In my search for that great piece of art I found the paintings of Leonid Afremov.  His paintings are done with a palette knife and oils and are quite unique.  They are very colorful and distinctive. While I find many of his paintings intriguing

I picked October in the Forest to share with you. This particular painting gives me a feeling of peace and serenity and renewal.

October in the Forest - By Leonid Afremov

While his art is beautiful and makes a statement all on it's own Afremov's personal story is inspiring as well.  Born on 12 July 1955 in Vitebsk, Belarus, then former USSR. Afremov was raised in a traditional Jewish family and spoke Yiddish and practiced their religious traditions at home during a time when anti-semitism in the government was high and their family risked imprisonment. He lived through the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 which was only a few hundred kilometers from his town and his 2 year old son was affected by the radiation.  In 1990, he migrated to Israel in hopes for a better life free of persecution.  However, he did not find it because his family was persecuted for being Russian. 

In 2002, he moved to the United States and then in 2010 he moved to moved to Playa del Carmen, a popular resort town near Cancun. Due to many of the bad experiences he has had with galleries, Afremov prefers to sell his paintings directly to collectors.  

Design Influences

Line: The lines in the path create depth and pull you into the picture. They also gives you a sense of continuation, you can just keep walking down the path. The vertical lines (trees) give you the sense of largeness, they continue up to the sky and out of the frame.

Shape: While this is a two dimensional painting have only height and width, the lines on the path create a sense of depth, drawing you into the painting.

Color: The colors used in this painting are very intense throughout the hue of colors. The value of color indicates where the sun is shining through the trees.

Space: You could argue the negative space is the trees and path and the positive space is the person walking on the path. It creates a very isolated feeling of a person walking down a rainy path, plus the person is less focused . The pathway/lines, as I have already discussed create a the three-dimensional space.

Texture: The artist has a lot of texture in his work, not to create something that really is but more to create a tactile feel to the work.  I believe that because is has so much texture in the painting, you really do feel as though it it raining or just finished raining.