Evgeny Yaranov is an Honored Artist of Russia and a member of the Artists’ Union of Russia, who has headed the Mari branch of the Union for many years. The painter was born in the Mari village of Usola, finished the Yoshkar-Ola boarding school for gifted children and at the age of 14 went to work at a factory. After serving in the army, he graduated from the Mari Republican Art School. He got an opportunity to work at the famous creative base “Akademicheskaya Dacha” named after Ilya Repin, which greatly contributed to his creative development as an artist. The artist himself spoke about it and said, “This is a unique place for artists! There you don’t think about the mundane things at all. The productivity is enormous! I went there for 16 years in a row and always brought a large number of completed works, both large and small.”

Evgeny Yaranov is a participant of numerous exhibitions of various levels, from national to international. The artist’s works are kept in Russian museums and in private collections around the world. Despite his fame, Evgeny Yaranov does not like publicity, avoids pomp and ceremony, and never delivers loud speeches about the role and place of the artist in society.

In the Mari fine art, Evgeny Yaranov is known as a skillful portraitist and master of landscapes and themed paintings. Many of his works are dedicated to the military theme, as well as to the landscape genre. The image of native nature, the beauty of the surroundings, and the iridescence of sunlight in many ways help him in achieving a joyful and bright mood of his landscapes. All his works are very bright, warm, invariably positive, and filled with profound philosophical meaning.

The portrait “Female Construction Worker” is one of those paintings that earned Yaranov his fame. The heroine’s clothes (her overalls, helmet, and gloves) hint at her profession. The young woman has decorated the tower crane’s cabin in a very feminine way and added a bouquet of blooming lilacs. She admires the panorama opening beneath her. Behind the heroine, we see new buildings up to the horizon line. The young woman’s pose is free and unrestrained. Her face is kind, her eyes are intelligent and slightly squinted, a slight half-smile appears on her lips. The color palette of the canvas is based on light tones.