The Phoenix Painting

Bekir Smolski (Belarus, 1966) - a professional artist working in different aspects of artistic creation: painting, stained glass, mosaic, frescoes and sgrafitto. Lives and works in Austria since 2002. His artworks are located in private collections in USA, Austria, Germany, Italy, France and other countries. During 2014-2019 was represented by Agora Gallery in NY, USA, with successful exhibitions and sales of the artworks. Light, with its transformations and changeability, variety of forms, uncommonness of structure has always been the source of inspiration for me. There are a few good examples of it throughout the centuries – ranging from the elegant play of light in the paintings of Dutch artists of the seventeenth century to the harsh, at times exaggerated, chiaroscuro in the work of some contemporary artists. “If I look at the history of art, I was definitely inspired by the romantic painter William Turner (1775-1851). I am impressed by the glorifying deepness of his landscapes and by magnificent light, which is moving within the space of his paintings. And definitely my admiration of Light was also transferred into my paintings and into my passion of creating stained glass objects. My irreal landscape at the paintings – is an illusion of a real landscape, or illusion of a reality. It reflects the tiny borderline between realistic understanding of the nature and a fantasy about it. Deep space and perspective, unusual lighting and color in these irreal landscapes give an opportunity to discover a new vision. I see the plane of the canvas as the peculiar space for transition to another dimension where there is a different view and different way to light.”