Frolikha Bay 1985

Mikhail Olennikov brushed this landscape, Frolikha Bay, into being with strokes of blue, purple, and white. I can almost feel Olennikov grappling with the weight and fluidity of the paint, trying to pin down something as elusive as the reflection of light on water or the hazy distance of mountains. Was he trying to capture a fleeting moment or a deeper, more lasting feeling? Look at the way he applies paint to the water, short dabs like morse code which create a feeling of constant movement. There’s a kind of humility in that act, of bowing to the fact that you can never truly capture nature, only offer your interpretation of it. You can see echoes of other artists, like the Impressionists, but there’s also something deeply personal in the way Olennikov renders the scene, a quiet reverence for the beauty of the landscape. Painters are always in conversation, and it’s a conversation about mark-making, about how to translate what we see and feel into something tangible. And that's the beauty of painting, right? It’s not about answers, but about the questions we ask along the way.