Oleg Skovorodka is a classical example of Vitebsk artist. He is confident, energetic and efficient. “My work is a depiction of my individual worldview by means of colour spots and lines. I am trying to poeticize the reality, to generalize images and make them sound harmonic”, says the master.
The artist was born on October 5, 1948 in the village Os’yo, Lepel Rayon, Vitebsk Oblast. He studied at the Vitebsk Pedagogical Institute (Art Department) under Feliks Gumen, Leonid Dyagilev, Albert Nekrasov. Since 1986 Oleg Skovorodka is a member of the USSR Artists’ Union.
Nowadays the artist lives and works in Vitebsk. Since 2005 he heads Vitebsk branch of the Belarusian Artists’ Union.
His personal exhibitions took place at the Palace of Arts in Minsk, in Vitebsk, Polotsk, Bobruisk, Smolensk, Pskov, Novgorod, Nienburg (Germany). This is his first personal exhibition at the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus. It is dedicated to the artist’s 60-th jubilee.
Oleg Skovorodka is an unquestionable authority, organizer and leader of the diverse and talented Vitebsk artists. He possesses striking energy. In spite of being busy he never put the brush aside for a long time. The artist has no need to invent a motive. He is attracted by wide expanses, where there is enough space for a brush work without a fear to spoil a fragment of a picture, to smear a Vitebsk cap or a street lamp near Yakub Kolas Academic Theatre, for example. In the meadows Oleg Skovorodka feels himself a pioneer like Paul Gauguin in Oceania. Uncontrollable element of his pictorial field is occupied by archaic wooden huts, ghostlike totem trees, and clouds as white as tablecloths. Only this artist can depict richness of colour and beauty of primeval Belarusian nature. His landscapes have intensive colours and formally are built according to all modern criteria.
The artist’s still lifes are his second pure melody, the melody of native fields. Fruits, vegetables, flowers, greenery and ceramics are classical attributes of silent and colourful world of things in his studio. The master not always thinks about the contours of the object in his still lifes. He is keen on texture, materiality and formal stylization. His manner of painting is steady, expressive and rich in colour. The artist doesn’t spare clear colours. He avoids sluggishness and dullness of salon still lifes with tasteless vases and flowers, of which we are sick and tired. Perhaps, the talent of innovator in this genre is given to Oleg Skovorodka since childhood. With special Vitebsk intuition he pacifies, moderates and balances out the most contrasting colour discords.
He also likes to paint women. His Vitebsk women are spontaneous and genuine. They are singing, looking at themselves in the mirror, taking a shower, listening to rock music, chattering with a friend on the mobile phone etc.
The artist Oleg Skovorodka moves swiftly forward. Nothing in his work is prepared, he is never complacent, which is inherent in a true artist.
The artist’s works are owned by the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus, the Modern Fine Arts Museum, the Grodno State History and Archaeology Museum, the Mogilyov Oblast Pavel Maslenikov Art Museum, the Vitebsk Art Museum, the Polotsk History and Culture Museum, the Art Fund of the Belarusian Artists’ Union.

Ludmila Nalivaiko, candidate of Art History