Ivan Semiletov

Ivan Semiletov – is a conspicuous figure in Belаrusian art, and somewhat paradoxical. On the one hand, his artistic life has been forming happily and successfully. On the other hand, his creative work is full of deep, soft, not immediately perceived drama and at times tragedy.

Semiletov is a hereditary artist. His grandfather was a very famous painter of the 40 – 80–ies, his father brilliantly showed his worth on the new wave of the 80 – 90–ies. Ivan is their logical, professional, but by no means stylistic, successor, who proved to surpass his ancestors. He got the best artistic education in our country: graduated from the Akhremchik Art Lyceum with its long-standing traditions of academic school and from the Belarusian Academy of Arts. He learned from the teachers-innovators at the innovatory time -- beginning of the 21-st century.

Ivan’s own paintings stand definitely apart from both the works of his artistic dynasty and those of his generation. He seems to be at a step in advance…

Its striking illustration – Grand Prix 2004 at the Republican Exhibition with very good exhibitors and a severe Hanging Сommittee – surely not due to his parentage but owing to his picture.

At first sight, Ivan’s paintings seem to be “things by themselves” – unlike anybody else’s. But if one persists on looking for analogues and forerunners he can’t but feel remote and complex associations with the art of Marc Chagall. It stands to reason that they arise not in direct plastic analogies which are thousands and thousands in the world – they lie in that profound ideological sense, artistic and genetic memory, which can come into existence and take part in the forming of an artist almost a century later.

It was by the invitation of Chagall, that at the beginning of the last century famous artists of Moscow and Petersburg – Malevich, Dobuzhinsky, Puni, Falk, Suetin, Chashnik and others – rushed to the quiet provincial town of Vitebsk. To the magic, mythical and mystic -- as it appeared later – Vitebsk where they found their Mecca, escaping from post-revolutionary and post-war metropolitan sentiments and collisions.

They found here a picture (place) which in a certain sense hasn’t almost changed up to the present. Unhurriedness and contemplativeness of the general rhythm of Belarusian being -- isn’t the cause of time or place, but rather of mentality. They were noted in the Vitebsk “pictures” by Chagall and have found their new and unexpected realization in the works of Semiletov, though in the art of his generation different rhythms are heard and seen. In the canvases of Ivan Semiletov there prevail topical compositions with absolute coincidence of the verbal (motif, name) and the visual (plastic) realization. For all this, the contents, topics, subjects – are absolutely of the author’s origin, let alone recognizability of his brush-work in all his pictures – from miniature sketches to monumental canvases. The range of topics is wide and original. “Silence” – the most mysterious and precious, is in Semiletov’s works sinister, multifaceted, and polyphonic phenomenon of a human life and communication. With Semiletov’s one it is monochromatic, grisaille, restrained, silver-cold… “Shadows” – always relentlessly reveal the silhouette and with it – the character…

“On the Porch of the Night” – polychromy of the background is covered with the signs of figures and objects, similar to those made by an ancient author of petroglyphs. The same is true for the “Coming Summer”. In it, as well as in many other compositions, there can be seen an intricate inward life of fantastic creatures, men -birds, men-fishes, etc., a kind of symbiosis of aquatic and aerial, animation and humanization of objects and phenomena. Fountain- musician in the “Quartette” renders subtle humor, which runs through many other pictures by Semiletov.

Circus, stage performance, play, transformation, childhood, Good and Evil – these and many other subjects, common for the artists of various times and peoples -- find their inimitable interpretation in his work, as well as the theme of travelling and within it the motifs of going away, leave-taking, love passions (“Game”, “Masks”, “Chapiteau”).

Perhaps, it is the approach to the theme and subject that brings the young painter near his famous countryman. It is common knowledge, that Marc Chagall’s creative work was utterly autobiographical both thematically and iconographically: he often depicted himself as a character of his compositions. The same can be seen in Semiletov’s pictures, where virtual and real events are infinitely interwoven. Confession neighbors upon fantasy, profound lyricism – upon subtle irony, fairy-tale – upon the fact, sudden Hebraic motifs – upon Russian popular prints, decorative polychrome Belarusian “maliavanki” (folk art painted carpets) – upon exquisite minimalist silhouettes… All these are depicted on the contrasting spot backgrounds, finely elaborated in colors and void of drawings.

With all his indefatigable fantasy and formal freedom in oil painting, Ivan can quite easily and virtuously accustom himself to a book page with his drawings and to create a precise and expressive book design. Which was more than once appreciated by Diplomas at the annual Republican contests “Book Art”.

Semiletov’s pictorial palette has no limits in colours, which are fully present in almost every canvas. This polychromy is finely harmonized and creates a unique colouristic symphony.

His compositions, frequently single-dimensional, underline utmost conventionality, eventlessness and non-being, and also symbolism and profound contemplation of the Universe, as if from aside, from his own height… As it becomes Artists and Men of Wisdom.

Hence is a great flow – as if within totally communicating vessels – from colour to colour, from reality to dream, lines from shape to shape… And also an organic combination of elements – surrealistic, expressionistic and those of art naif – which, by the way, can be seen in the works of Chagall…

Ivan Semiletov’s painting is variously musical. There can be heard in it rhythms and often arrhythmia of colour spots and shapes akin to acute-angled fragments of the music by Schonberg (“Performance”,“Arena”); a tense colour score, similar to the symphonies of Prokofiev (3,4); expressive shapes in the spirit of powerful symphonic currents of Shostakovich (4); or as if streaming from Heavens music by Bach (“Unnamed”, “Travelling”).

The unique feature of this painter is his position in the system of style and image-bearing coordinates. He keeps on balancing on a tightly stretched thread—between an expressive, dynamically-perceptive artist’s reaction upon psychological, philosophical and mundane collisions – on one side. And on the other -- the world of harmony, peace and universal prosperity, created by the author’s pictorial fantasy outside visible and perceptible reality.

AWARDS

2008

Nominee and 2.nd place, International art competition Art-Line, Minsk, Belarus

2007

Grand Prix MOOH Sunny Square and Igor Northerner Scholarship for 2008, Moscow, Russia

Kopyov CHA Scholarship, Moscow, Russia

2004

2.nd place, Republican Book Art Competition, Minsk, Belarus

Grand Prix, Padarozhzha, Minsk, Belarus

2000

3.nd place, Republican Book Art Competition, Minsk, Belarus