From the 19th of July to the 17th of August the personal art exhibition of Vasiliy Shikhanov named “From Yaroslavl to Petersburg: Landscapes of Russia” will take place in “The Guild of Masters”, the oldest gallery of Saint-Petersburg, located at 82 Nevsky Prospect (downstairs).
     Two deeply intertwined life services supplement each other in Vasiliy Shikhanov’s fate: the priest’s service and the painter’s service. Both of them spring from his childhood. According to Priest Vasiliy, he has always felt himself a believer and he has always painted – since he was very young. He acquired his deep faith from his pious grandmother, but his ability to depict beauty is his individual talent, as there have been no artists in the Shikhanov family (excluding a grandfather, who was a skillful blacksmith).
     Choosing a profession and an educational institution had never been a complicated question for Vasiliy. After the School of Arts as a child, he then entered the Yaroslavl College of Arts. Then he joined the Leningrad Higher School of Art and Industry, named after V.I. Mukhina.
     His first attempt to enter “Mukha” (informal nickname for the Leningrad Higher School) in 1991 was a failure. But with this failure came providence. In order to stay in Leningrad and have a possibility to prepare for the Arts School’s examinations, Vasiliy got a job in “VOHR” - the militarized security troop, which was well known among artists, as it provided its members with hostel accommodation and a residence permit. Talented youth came here from all over the Soviet Union to prepare to enter the educational institutes in Leningrad. Here Vasiliy met young people whose faith was real and deliberate. They helped him to find an experienced pastor, who foretold Vasiliy’s future priesthood. Vasiliy also met his future spouse Svetlana here.
     During that time Vasiliy had fruitful and creative communications. He exchanged experiences with people of different Schools of Arts. But there were temptations in this period. A heady freedom of expression and a sudden equality of artistic styles were dangerous for one with unsteady personal consciousness. At that time there was also a possibility of easy earnings at the street art-markets. Resisting the temptations arising from these situations helped crystallize Vasiliy’s personality. After one year Vasiliy passed his entrance examinations.
     The main direction of Shikhanov’s creativity became landscape painting - determined over the years of his education. Whilst realism, based on a steadfast study of reality, became his artistic method.
     It seems that a return to realism will always re-occur in the history of painting. People, who lived in the time of socialistic realism, later become witnesses of the next “swing of the pendulum”. When the muddy spume of “Perestroyka” has rushed by, lots of masters returned to the realistic vision. They reassure us that this method is universal for expressing the primordial humanistic nature of painting.
     Shikhanov’s painting, pure and spirited, is full of the joy of life. Shikhanov perceived the impressionistic tradition with rapid fixation of reality. However, he declines one of the fundamental features of impressionism – fragmenting the kaleidoscope of life.
     Shikhanov’s composition is always steady, balanced and well thought-out. It develops into some microcosmos, reflecting the harmony of the universe. In this regard, Shikhanov is the heir of the Russian tradition of the “Peredvijniki” (the itinerant Art Exhibition Partnership, from Shishkin to Levitan). This provides a feeling of great in the little, of Creator in the creation and is full of trust and the joy of being the Creator’s son. It makes ‘charm’ the main feature of Vasiliy Shikhanov’s creativity, which is hard to resist.

     Irina Bembel: Art Critic/Manager
     “The Guild of Masters” Gallery
     82 Nevsky Prospect
     Phone: 579 0979