Staring down at the ripples of a pond where reflections of a whole universe of lights and shadows seem to shudder at the breath of the wind – this is what the watercolors of Nikolay Ovchinnikov impress. Not just this, but far more. This shuddering universe bears fading streaks of watercolor that suddenly become angel-like figures, church structures with delicate crosses, grand cloud formations, abstract landscapes, and much more. All at once, a sense of ephemerality and eternity embraces Ovchinnikov’s scenes as if at any moment his vision with the blow of a gentle breeze can change, perpetually susceptible to flux. He fashions the illusion of fluidity to a frozen moment caught in time, which becomes the groundwork for his spiritual outlook of the divine world as dynamic in its beauty. Just as masterful as he is in his content, so too is he in his medium as he explores the behavior of watercolors – standing at an edge between the spontaneity of bleeding colors free from control and a stricter command over minute details.
Ovchinnikov was born in 1952 in Gomel’s region, Belarus and graduated from the Vitebsk Art Institute under the art and graphic faculty where he studied under F. Gumen and I. Stolyarov. Throughout his years, his work has been informed by his spiritual and philosophical understandings that have been as much reflective of his inner world as of the divine.