Biography of artist Mikola Bushchyk

•  Childhood and adolescence
• Education
• Family
• Career
• Becoming an artist
• Career heyday
• Interesting facts

Birth name: Mikola Bushchyk

Date of Birth: May 22, 1948 (officially - May 1, 1948)
Birthplace: Grodno region, Belorussian SSR
Education: Krasnodar Art College, Belarusian State Theater Arts Institute
Style: neo-expressionism

Mikola Bushchyk is a well-known Belarusian artist and expressionist. Participants of more than 200 international, national and regional exhibitions in Belarus, Russia, France, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Germany and other countries. He is an author of more than 500 watercolor paintings and about 1000 oil paintings.

His works are in the collections of the National Art Museum (Minsk, Belarus), of the Belarusian Union of Artists (Minsk, Belarus), of the Museum of Modern Art (Minsk, Belarus), in the collections of Artists' Union of Russia (Moscow, Russia) and of the Ministry of Culture of Russia (Moscow , Russia), in Zimmerli Art Museum (New Brunswick, USA), in the collection of the city hall of Dammarie-les-Lys (Paris, France), in the Art Gallery of Potsdam (Potsdam, Germany), in the National Art Museum of Latvia (Riga, Latvia) and in many others, as well as in private collections in Belarus , Russia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, former Yugoslavia, Poland, Spain, Finland, USA, Luxembourg, the Netherlands.

Childhood and adolescence

Mikola Bushchyk was born in Belarus in Grodno region. At that time his father Vladimir Bushchyk was head of a village shop. His mother Vera (maiden name Minenko) worked as a pharmacist. Painter’s parents were the most respected and helpful people in the village.In the difficult postwar years poverty and the shortage were felt in everything and the villagers could always ask Bushchyk’s family either for suggestion or for real help.

However, the family didn’t live in Belarus long: the great asperity of  Belarusian climate and hard work associated with frequent and far departures, strongly undermined Vera’s health: she felt ill with pulmonary tuberculosis.

The family had to go to Krasnodar, to the artist’s mother`s native land. In Krasnodar, Mikola’s brother Igor was born. However, the disease was progressing: Mikola was even younger than 8 when the family suffered an irreparable loss - Vera passed away. The elderly people who knew Vera still remember her as an incredibly kind and beautiful woman – there were no more such women in the village.

A few years later Vladimir married Anna Stepanova. Two more years they lived in Belarus where Mikola finished the 5th and the 6th grades, and then the family moved again - this time to the village Veretie in Ostrogozhsk district (Russia), home of Anna Pavlovna who loved Mikola with all her heart. The future artist graduated from the eight-year school in the Veretie.

Education

The summer when Mikola graduated from school he received an invitation from his grandfather Grigory Ivanovich Minenko to come to study in art school in Krasnodar. Grandfather knew of his grandson’s life passion, and he knew that the boy drew very well. The first attempt to pass exams failed: the preparation wasn`t enough. And how could he have it? There were no art studios in the village.

Examiners advised Mikola to go to an art school in Krasnodar and he followed the advice. There he was immediately admitted to the third grade. After having studied a year in art studio, he passed the entrance exams to the art school with the highest scores and became its student. The five years of study were not in vain: they gave a good guidance, showed what you can aspire to and what to achieve. Therefore, after graduation in Krasnodar, the young man decides to learn on and goes to Minsk where he starts at a painting department of The Theatre and Art Institute (BGTHI) (now - the Belarusian State Academy of Fine Arts (BGAI)).

By this time the artist's father Vladimir returned to Belarus and permanently settled in his native village, and for Mikola it was the opportunity to see his dear person more often.

Family

Being a student the young artist acquired his own family. His first son Andrew was born in 1974 and the second Sergey - in 1977.

The elder son, Andrew Bushchyk, has become a world known dancer, lives in St. Petersburg. He and his wife Valeria Bushuyeva, with whom Andrew acts in pair for many years, are European and Latin ballroom dancing champions of Russia, two-time vice-champions and two-time European ballroom dancing champions.

Sergey Bushchyk, the artist’s younger son, lives in Toronto, Canada. During his years in the College of Arts he successfully performed as a dancer, was a ballroom dancing champion of Belarus. But time has radically changed his career orientation: Sergei decided to follow his father and also became an artist. He actively participates in regional and international exhibitions and events and is a member of the Ontario Society of artists.

Career

Artist’s creative activity began in the years of studying in the Theatre and Art Institute: the first solo exhibition he led while being a student of the third year. In order to have his own workshop, by the end of studying Mikola joined the Belarusian State Institute of Postgraduate Medical education as a graphic designer.

In the last 6-th year of study he was invited to teach in the senior class of the Republican Art School for gifted children. After graduation, the young specialist was allocated as a teacher to the department of drawing on the architectural faculty of the Belarusian Polytechnic Institute (BPI). However, after the six years of work at the institute the artist left it and searched for freedom and true creativity, which is incompatible with schedules and regimes. Mikola Bushchyk has become a freelance artist and remains in this role nowadays.

The only exception for the three decades that have passed since that time was his election as the head of the Belarusian Union of Artists, which he joined in 1980. But he left this job in 1988 - two years after inauguration without waiting a re-election. Later Nick Bushchyk concentrates only on his own creative activities, participation in exhibitions, international events, etc.

The demand for artist’s works, an interest in his personality allowed him to remain a truly independent artist and a free man. Such a phenomenon is uncommon: the majority of contemporary Belarusian artists have to work somewhere in order not to starve.

Modern art is not a seller. And yet, we can see that much depends on the personality of the painter, and the mood of his works.

Becoming an artist

Mikola Bushchyk’s early period works differ from mature paintings not only in a measure of professionalism. Beginning of the way is a time of a formal search, strained attention to moral, ethical and psychological problems, to the inner life of characters in the painting. There is no such a passion in the early works of the artist as it is in the modern period.

The early works are emotionally restrained, seems like they are studying life gradually. Nevertheless at the beginning the artist aimed to create an allegory, to encode the plastic language. His form elements: color, line, light, volume ratio are metaphorically significant. And even then it made the artist’s works free to multivalued perception.

Exhibiting in Belarus as a young artist, Nicholas Bushchyk attracted everybody’s attention using his "unnotoriousity" in relations with color and weight of paint. Among the environment of modest gray canvas Bushchyk’s colors brightly flashed beside a few other names - the beacons of a real healthy talent. Despite everything, it was clear who was currently representing the real Belarusian art.

Over the time experts have recognized that their expectations are not deceived. For the first 10-20 years of independent work in painting Mikola Bushchyk’s talent have undergone a certain evolution. It has been smooth, unhurried so that it can’t be seen from exhibition to exhibition. It is easier to measure it with specific steps. However, the art is not a technique, where the evolution necessarily means improvement and refinement.

Each period of creativity has its own certain value. There are a lot of interesting faces in the Bushchyk’s early works, later he is fond of archetypes, moving away from portraits. In the 1980-1990-ies the artist creates series of architectural landscapes. Bodies of palaces, churches, fortresses are woven from threads away from the portrait. In the 1980-1990-ies the artist created series of architectural landscapes. Bodies of palaces, churches, fortresses are woven from threads of light; the contrasts of hot and cold colors saturate stress space of his oil paintings and watercolor sheets.

Images of monumental buildings are painted, inspired by the energy of the artist's delight. Periodically, early Bushchyk is captured by the picture of nature again and again. And he boldly surprises the audience with precious glow of emeralds, rubies and malachite scattered across the canvas. Not every viewer is used to seeing the world around us like this!

Along with lyrical motifs of paintings that lead to meditation, in the early scenes we can see many moments of the vivid expression of rhythm and color. The artist's canvases are picturesque in their selves, but at the same time they are of a certain monumentalizm, although Bushchyk has never been engaged in the production of monumental government orders. But in the paintings there is always a value close to the monumental: on perception some of his paintings are close to the frescoes, others – to mosaics and stained glass windows.

And the colors on these canvases are always dominant and active. Back in 1990s at the exhibitions held in Minsk, Moscow, Dordrecht Dutch, French, Lille, many viewers noted the meditative impact of the paintings.

Repeatedly art lovers from among psychologists and doctors said Nikolai Vladimirovich that his paintings are harmonious, that they can treat. And some even ascribed his art a hypnotic, magical effect on the viewer.

Early Mikola Bushchyk is not only an irrepressible energy of talent, which is common to youth. He has always been characterized by insistence and persistence. Many works, just select the path of learning and development - that is what led the artist to the fact that in the end he found his own space and time.

Career heyday

In the recent years, the artist apparently walked away from the concreteness of a specific theme and a plot and the locality of figurative language. Free elements of color dominate in his works. Contemporary works by Mikola Bushchyk are a kind of "Color Fantasy ", where in unusual structural combinations fresh plastic ideas full of aesthetic energy are felt.

There are surprising combinations of spot and line, unexpected color combinations in his oil paintings. The artist animates nature, seeks to build a track through the soulful plastic color relationships, the harmony and dissonance of cold and warm shades.

His paintings are like a jazz improvisation, an amazing symphony. No wonder he loves high, great music so passionately. Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Grieg, Sibelius ... He often works with the sound of their unrivaled creations near him. That is why it is not surprising that the contemplation of his paintings often creates the illusion that in the process of acquaintance with a painting our inner musical ear is involved. Visualizations generated uncertain but very musical associations.

The artist often appeals to the viewer's imagination by presenting a particular topic through a number of figurative superimposed object’s lines on the basis of color. It is true the author can successfully avoid the linearity and focus the image.

Mikola Bushchyk’s heroes are very mobile and abstracted; their images are shown in the light touches of contrasting surfaces based paintings. In this situation, the language of abstract painting seems most appropriate, and a free element of color provides great opportunities for the expression of feelings. And sometimes these feelings on the canvas are just rampant! In such cases, the artist's paintings are Expressionism in its clearest manifestation, squared expressionism!

Bushchyk’s palette has an enduring attachment to the paints of a variety of properties. The color is the thing that concerns and worries, calls for conversation, makes misunderstandings, so that right on that place to dispel them, reconciles, and finally impresses a careful and unhurried viewer. Such an audience will understand why the artist puts red on red, a green on green, and blue on blue.

Mikola Bushchyk’s favorite colors are blue as a symbol of the Space, the Universe,the Eternity, yellow - the color of God, red - the color of Human. Using these colors he tells us about the spiritual world, about the fact that the Universe is filled with the energy of light and goodness, - about his ideals.

Painting is Mikola Bushchyk’s spiritual space, projected onto the canvas. There are many things in this space: the past and future, the soul and the physical vacuum, the realities and the eternity of time, anticipation and memory. However, no matter what he created - a realistic landscape, as he feels it, a semi-abstract exercise, a symbolic composition or an emotionally expressive picture - he tends to one thing: his audience should be able to achieve harmony. That is why the painter is interested in many different genres.

For many years, the artist seeks to convey to the audience his main image-plastic code - look on the world through the philosophy of color, rhythm, and internal tensions. Perhaps, it is not immediately and not everyone would understand. Yes, the understanding of this art actually requires a great attention to it.

Mikola Bushchyk’s works are not just interior paintings. Perhaps their place is in museums. But nevertheless!

In the life of the artist there are sometimes unpredictable, unusual things. For example, there are such fans of Mykola Bushchyk’s art, such collectors, who not only changed the interiors of their apartments for his paintings. They have built the whole houses for these pictures!

The artist travels a lot, but all his trips are not just trips to one or another point on the map. He collects the material for his future works everywhere.
"Travelling is interesting for me like a first view, like a sense of a child, - says Mikola.- I need it to be able to see, enjoy clean feelings. But to a familiar place I go only when many details are forgotten and only some symbols are left in the memory. It’s surprising that people sometimes paint simply rocks and trees. This is an aspect of the household, and the themes for an artist are people, land and space. That is why I don’t want to travel as a tourist, and exoticism for exoticism is not interesting, too. It is important to understand what you see, make an aesthetic impression."

Bushchyk’s watercolor impressions are especially interesting. True is that he believes the whole life is a journey for an artist, even if he (she) just looks out of the window. In his watercolors there is a slightly epicurean passion, a thirst to tell you what a wonderful gift our life is.

Mikola Bushchyk does not appeal to the photographic concreteness in painting. According to him, the artists must express themselves, tell their story, and sing a melody in paints. "Can you guess any reality in it or not - in nature, it is still quite different," - said the master.
Time goes on and reality is changing. The face of time is changing to the rhythm, and after that to the emotions.

For Mikola Bushchyk emotions are always color. This is where his inimitable play of shades on the canvas, a change in figurativeness. He has never sought to the chronicles, journalism in the painting. The artist is working on the most important task for himself - to show the aesthetic, spiritual beginning of his time.

Interesting facts about the painter

- In May 1995 in Minsk two Bushchyk’s solo exhibitions were opened at one time. Two different themes of one painter in the same city and at one time is a rare case. Both were successful!

- In ancient Polotsk Mikola Bushchyk scored the opening of three exhibitions in at one day - an abstract, a symbolic and a watercolor exhibition. The author is barely kept pace with the opening! "Bushchyk in Polotsk"- under this title the event is memorable for the citizens and visitors of Polotsk.

- In the fabulously beautiful Dutch town of Dordrecht, which amazingly resembles Amsterdam in miniature, an exhibition of watercolors by the artist took place in the Gallery of Alla Pavlova. A group of journalists was passing the gallery by bus. They saw Bushchyk’s paintings in the windows and suddenly stopped. Stunned by what they saw they begged the landlady to let them shoot a story for TV. TV reporters scooted a five-minute movie and laid the great music by Shostakovich on it. This "scrolled" across the country, and the next morning the artist "became famous" for the whole Kingdom of the Netherlands. Frankly speaking in Netherlands there are many of his paintings.

- There are private collectors who collect only his Mikola Bushchyk`s oil paintings. They are Serge Dow in France, Thomas Shnayderhayntse in Germany, Boris Nekrasov in Belarus. Collecting paintings by contemporary artists is a hobby for all these different people but Bushchyk is a favorite artist for all of them.