Maxim Voronov (1969) is a Tashkent born graduate from the Republican Arts School named after P.Benkov and from the Fine Arts faculty of the Arts Institute named after Mannon Uigur (currently, the National Institute of Arts and Design named after K. Behzod).
Maxim believes that he follows I.Limakov, the honored worker of arts of Uzbekistan, and painter M. Tashmuradov.
Today works of the young artist are displayed in the residence of the President of Uzbekistan, in the representative office of ‘Uzbekiston Airways’ in Tashkent, in private collections worldwide. M.Voronov’s pictures have been shown at different exhibitions, including the exhibition at CDH (Central Exhibition Hall) in Russia where canvases of leading painters of Uzbekistan were exhibited (2005).
Talent, intuition, sub-consciousness and emotional charge are the determiners of the creative work of this young artist. In addition, great significance is attached to his comprehensive attitude to the positive experience of the art of the past. Giant information flow in the field of arts history and current artistic processes imply the variety of perceptions and selection of his way. From the point of view of psychology of creativity, all these factors have played the decisive role in the formation of the original manner and professionalism of the painter Maxim Voronov.
If compared with the realistic manner of the Russian masters, his works demonstrate the Uzbekistan’s painter adherence to Russian landscape painting. His canvases raise associations with the widely known works by A.Savrasov, I.Levitan and I.Grabar painted in the best traditions of the realistic school of painting. Landscape became the priority genre in M.Voronov’s creative work. In 1990-s he began painting architectural landscapes following the manner of the Russian masters of the 19th century. He has mastered the complicated system of light and shade of color spectrum, valeurs, making bases with grisaille and applying lassierung painting. At the same time one cannot but notice that the artist masterly applies modern means of artistic expressiveness in his works; this is directly connected with the use of ready-made chemical paints and mastering of the variety of painting techniques.
V.Voronov has the brilliant command of all artistic and expressive means of realistic painting – compositional structuring, creation of light-airy perspective, permeation and exquisite feeling of color match.
t is worth noting that fantasy distinguishes his realistic architectural landscapes. He gives his architectural landscapes the names of famous architectural monuments – ‘Chashma Ayub’, ‘Rejistan’ ‘Chor-Minor’ and the like.
Thanks to the powerful imagination of the painter historical images of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva monuments in M.Voronov’s canvases turn into a fantasy image filled with boiling life laid-back off today’s rhythms but ruled by the fairy-tale atmosphere of the East and its exotics. He conveys the spirit of his landscapes through the state of nature reflecting his own inner feelings.
Apart of his architectural landscapes, in his mountainous landscapes M.Voronov applies the decorativeness principle. Mountains provide notion of ‘elevation’ with a different perception.
It is because not only a human being has physically elevated several thousand meters above the sea level, but also he seems to elevate over commonness as if he had denied anything routine and insignificant. In the mountains, ‘elevation’ stands close to ‘majesty’. That is the way to perceive M.Voronov’s canvas ‘Aspiration’.
Fantasy and imagination characterize the artist’s series of still-lives. They are passing over the state of individual who is contemplating the flowers. This series can be named ‘Flower Symphony’. Conventionality and decorativeness – these are the two major notions characterizing flower still-lives of Maxim Voronov. As a rule they are missing the expressive means of the realistic painting, i.e. depth, volume and light and shadow treatment. However, they are characteristic of planarity, clear musical rhythm of lines and color spots. Composition ‘Agility’ transfers the original rhythm of the ‘Flower Waltz’ melody expressed in the painting dynamics of long stalks.
The painter strives to express his love to the beautiful, his own attitude to the beauty with the help of the flower still-life. That is why flowers made up a multiple series of canvases in his creative work. V.Voronov’s still-lives are full of fantasy, his imagination created them. One of the compositions is called ‘Imaginary Bunch of Flowers’. Silvery bunch is monochromic but brightened up with yellow strokes creating the feeling of the bouquet collected from dry mountainous herbs. The painted bouquet seems to shed the spicy aroma of the Tian-Shan mountains.
M.Voronov has comparatively recently stepped on the road of an independent painter; he has already determined the conceptual basis of his creativity and found the way in the fine arts of Uzbekistan. New searches and new canvases await him. His workability and talent shall serve the collateral of his future artistic achievements. The first snow. 2003
1. Mountainous Bouquet. 2004. C., oil.
2. Rains. 2002. C., oil.
3. Beldersay under snow. 2004. C., oil.
4. Sunrise. 2002. C., oil.
5. Nauruz. 2004. C., oil.
6. Beldersay. 2004. C., oil.
7. The First Snow. 2003. C., oil.
8. Imaginary Bunch of Flowers. 2004. C., oil.