Alex Kanevsky, the search of clarity

Alex Kanevsky tells of how he decided, after completing his studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), that he could dedicate his entire artistic life to painting nothing more than apples. I think that all artists suffer from that uncertainty at the start of their careers. To make your own way in the world of art, you have to find a subject matter and be original. Kanevsky perhaps thought that, like Cezanne or Morandi, he would be able to concentrate on painting individual apples and that such a specific quest would allow him to delve deep into the subject matter and transcend it; a kind of “appleness” that would justify his rationale as a painter.

As was to be expected, he soon tired of this search, but it at least provided him with a starting point from which to showcase twelve paintings of apples in his first public exhibition. This way of thinking is revealing of Kanevsky’s restless spirit and his strong determination to leave a significant and personal artistic mark.

Having got over his apple stage, Kanevsky composed the painting “mer de roses”. The image of an enraged, running dog seemed to him to fully symbolise his own attitude towards painting, and perhaps represented his true starting point as an artist. Viewed in retrospect, the painting anticipates some of the characteristic elements of Kanevsky’s painting: movement, mystery, and in terms of technique, a loose and very expressive brush-stroke.

Alex Kanevsky lives and paints in Pennsylvania where he also teaches at PAFA. He was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, however, and there he studied mathematics before deciding to earn his living as a painter and emigrate to the United States. He worked as an illustrator until he obtained a degree in Fine Art from PAFA.

Alex Kanevsky Subject matter

Alex Kanevsky seems to have voluntarily given up on developing projects or conducting investigations of any sort. His wishes might best be summarised as no more than an intention to paint well. The most common theme running through his paintings is human beings in their environment. He usually represents interior scenes in which the characters are not posed, but instead lost in a moment of everyday activity. The viewer becomes a “voyeur” who should not be witness to the private moment they are presented with.

Inspired by an exhibition at which he was able to see some Chinese paintings from the 16th century, Kanevsky composed a series of paintings in a very landscaped format where he attempted to extend the concept of character portraits to include more information about the surroundings. This is a narrative proposition in which specific sequences of the characters’ daily lives enjoy more or less prominence according to the length of time that is assigned to them.

He has occasionally produced landscape paintings, and even a series of maritime works that he composed while on a stay in Ireland after being challenged by the English painter Trevor Sutton.

His painting moves between figurative and abstract expression. Alex Kanevsky takes partially real elements and combines them in an apparently arbitrary way in order to achieve what he calls a “specific emotional atmosphere”. This may involve the specular repetition of images, the movement of figures within space, or blurred faces. The colour planes of both backgrounds and figures are intermingled and enter their respective spaces. In any case, what always emerges is his exquisite taste in the use of colour and drawing.

Alex Kanevsky Technique and mediums

Alex Kanevsky is an oil painter. Those clean colour planes, interspersed with very liquid glazes, are characteristic of his paintings. As a medium he basically uses Liquin, the alkyd gel from Winsor & Newton. He admits to not being particularly careful with regard to organising and using colours; beside his palette, he has oil tubes that he has to rummage through in order to find the one he needs at any given time. He uses two types of each of the primary colours; one transparent and another opaque. Earthy colours are also well represented on his palette; the transparent oxide brown appears in many of his works, for example.

He normally paints on board, but resorts to canvas when dealing with very large formats (not very common for him). He defines himself as an impatient painter, unable to approach painting in a methodical and painstaking manner. He paints very quickly, pursuing the emotional atmosphere that he tries to achieve at the first attempt. This is not easily done, however. So, he paints the entire canvas a second time and so on, composing his work by building up successive layers. He will decide to keep small gaps that have been left from earlier layers, and these progressively add richness and expressivity. You can see these intermediary processes of some of his paintings on his website. The transformation is surprising; in his search, he sometimes completely changes the position of the subject, or he removes and replaces it with another, different, subject. The backgrounds and colours also change. Using this brave, almost unintentional, method, he creates richly expressive works that breathe due to the quantity of accumulated pictorial intentions.

Alex Kanevsky love for drawing can also be seen in his works. Like Antonio López, Kanevsky produces drawings that are conceived as complete works and not just as sketches or preparatory material for his paintings. They are works created from clean and subtle graphite lines in which he superimposes and corrects the movements that occur. Sometimes, the latter are involuntary; at other times they are deliberate and the model is asked to make them.

In search of clarity

In painting, perhaps the only way to better yourself is to take risks. To work in the grey area that can be found between competence and an assured technique, and incompetence and fear. When that struggle has been fought in the creation of a work, you will never feel ashamed of the result. Look back and you will at least see an honest work. I believe that is Alex Kanevsky’s main quality; his somewhat reckless search for immediacy, freshness and clarity.

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