The artist who created the canvas presented in the museum’s exhibition, Mikhail Polyakov, was born in the Gorky region, graduated from the Graphic Faculty of the Vladimir State Pedagogical Institute and the Department of Interior Design of the Nizhny Novgorod State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering. A member of the Artists’ Union of Russia and participant of significant exhibitions in Russia, Mikhail Polyakov actively promotes Russian and Nizhny Novgorod art abroad. His works have been presented at exhibitions in Poland and Germany, and are kept in private collections in the USA, Australia, China, the Czech Republic, England, and the Netherlands.
Polyakov learned the secrets of the so-called Vladimir school of painting with its vivid decorative colors, thick textures and constant optimism. The artist was fascinated with the Russian avant-garde and its search for structures of objects and space, and from this fascination arose his own original manner of working with objects and spaces characterized by decorative and expressive elements. Mikhail Polyakov enthusiastically experiments with materials and textures, travels around Russia and Europe in search of new images and meanings. But his main way of processing impressions of the surrounding world is still manifested though his painting.
In his paintings, Mikhail Polyakov harmoniously and expressively depicts his native expanses, captures the corners and moments of familiar streets of Nizhny Novgorod and other cities, the outskirts of local villages, landscapes familiar to each of us, and other unconsciously favored places. Each of his works is filled with love for the flow of life, nature and native lands.
In 2014, Polyakov took part in the All-Russian plein air “Mari El in the mirror of art: a contemporary’s view”. As a result, Mikhail Polyakov created urban landscapes that became part of the permanent exhibition at the National Art Gallery. The view of the Yoshkar-Ola embankment under construction is painted in a manner characteristic of the artist: wide, thick brush strokes, a bright color palette, the contrast of ocher buildings and the green sky with yellow and blue accents. In the foreground there is a bridge across the river, on which staffage figures are barely discernible. Behind the bridge, we see the Annunciation Tower and the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos and tower cranes.
Polyakov learned the secrets of the so-called Vladimir school of painting with its vivid decorative colors, thick textures and constant optimism. The artist was fascinated with the Russian avant-garde and its search for structures of objects and space, and from this fascination arose his own original manner of working with objects and spaces characterized by decorative and expressive elements. Mikhail Polyakov enthusiastically experiments with materials and textures, travels around Russia and Europe in search of new images and meanings. But his main way of processing impressions of the surrounding world is still manifested though his painting.
In his paintings, Mikhail Polyakov harmoniously and expressively depicts his native expanses, captures the corners and moments of familiar streets of Nizhny Novgorod and other cities, the outskirts of local villages, landscapes familiar to each of us, and other unconsciously favored places. Each of his works is filled with love for the flow of life, nature and native lands.
In 2014, Polyakov took part in the All-Russian plein air “Mari El in the mirror of art: a contemporary’s view”. As a result, Mikhail Polyakov created urban landscapes that became part of the permanent exhibition at the National Art Gallery. The view of the Yoshkar-Ola embankment under construction is painted in a manner characteristic of the artist: wide, thick brush strokes, a bright color palette, the contrast of ocher buildings and the green sky with yellow and blue accents. In the foreground there is a bridge across the river, on which staffage figures are barely discernible. Behind the bridge, we see the Annunciation Tower and the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos and tower cranes.
