“Code of the North” is a landscape painted from life. It is a view of Zarechye, a district of Syktyvkar, the capital of the Komi Republic. The houses behind the Sysola River are lit by the dim rays of sunset. The painting style and the northern color palette are determined by the search for a code, a language that could be used to interpret these scenes. The painting is imbued with contemplation, awareness of the beauty of a simple landscape, and unity with eternity.
The painting was created by Kristina Ovsyankina, a young contemporary artist from the Komi Republic, a member of the Artists’ Union, and a graduate of the Applied Art Department at Syktyvkar State University named after Pitirim Sorokin. She has actively participated in exhibitions for young artists and photographers of the North, creative workshops, and regional art exhibitions “Russian North”.
Kristina Ovsyankina participates in international visual art plein airs titled “Klyukva” (“Cranberry”) which include visiting the villages of Kozlovka, Ust-Tsilma, Yb, and Izhma, Vorkuta, Naryan-Mar, Vaygach Island, and the Polar Urals. The artist’s works are regularly displayed at solo exhibitions. Her guiding principles in painting are freedom and intuition.
The aesthetic language used by Kristina Ovsyankina is non-objective and fragile. When creating a painting, she interprets the interaction between the human soul and nature through images. The composition of her paintings is balanced on the verge of the visible and tangible, her works are poetic and dynamic. “Code of the North” represents the artist’s wish to spark the viewer’s imagination. She does not craft a precise true-to-life depiction but rather offers a glimpse into what is hidden in everyday life.
Multiple paint layers achieve color depth, volume, and lightness, while the light-colored layer is responsible for substantiality and weight. The transparent density of color enhances the volume of “invisible” forms and the effects of illumination while maintaining the lightness of painting. The artist’s painting is a unique phenomenon: it is a landscape with an environmental approach.
In her composition, Ovsyankina gently combines rhythms, structure, and non-specificity. The authentic landscape has an air of a weightless fresco. The physical world remains somewhere beyond the canvas, while the artist’s spiritual inner world is the real focus here. The emotional texture of Ovsyankina’s works is so subtle, her style is so immersed in the environment, and her images are filled with such poetic intonations that the picturesque northern nature becomes a separate world with its own cultural code.
