Described by Veronique Helmridge-Marsillian
Doctor of Philosophy, University of Sydney
‘An opulent and transient dream – such is the tender moment painted by Dmitry Kuznichenko. It glisters with the spangle of an insect’s wing: it shimmers with the silk of a girl’s fair hair; it dances down the arabesques of childhood.
What do you get, when old-world European aestheticism is transplanted to the Aussie backyard? You get a resplendent affirmation of life, dappled with humour.
Born 1962 in Kharkov, the Ukraine, Kuznichenko studied six years at the Institute of Arts and Design (then the Academy of Fine Arts), graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in 1986. Since emigrating to Australia in 1992, he has enthusiastically made this country his own. Australian idiosyncrasies are integrated into his subject-matter, while the unique shapes and coloration of the Australian landscape become backdrops to his scenes. Indeed, Arthur Boyd is honoured, both in form and content in Whisper, while Ruby Shoes pays equal (though jesting) homage to the…Victa lawn-mower.
Whisper is the whisper of love along textured earth – the whisper of night air round a clouded full moon – the whisper of a lover and his bride nibbling red watermelon, languid and swooning.
A patch of red also forms the accent of Ruby Shoes, but here a Velasquezian infanta is transported to an Aussie site. Sumptuously attired in an amethyst crinoline, turquoise cravat, crystalline brocade, and yes, the ruby shoes of optimism, our suburban princess pushes an antique motor-mower. Emerald grass grows fast in backyards – little girls grow fast themselves – past toys lie lost in the overgrown lawn – mowing is the only way to retrieve them. Behind her, a grevillea explodes like a firework.
Parents regret the impermanence of childhood: a child simply lives it. The artist had hoped to paint his daughter on a Sunday; but Tasia (aged 9) was busy, busy, busy. She had no time to recline in a hammock; she hardly stood long enough to pose; it seemed four feet were scurrying beneath her frock. Tasia teased her father with flashes of beauty – she teases the horse with the flash of her mirror – spinning a yo-yo she seems to declare: “My Sunday is gone in its bejewelled spin!” Such is a Yo-Yo Sunday.
Everything speeds from left to right in I Am Not Just A River, whose bushland banks are based upon Cooks River (between Earlwood and Hurlstone Park). A girl and her hula-hoop lean at a run; her pet Dalmatian arcs in reply; their cone of gelato is poised in the centre; the river is not just a river, but the flux of time.
In the end, though, it is love that gives a glimpse of eternity. Zooming In (versions I and II), shows a couple who went out at night, to seize the secret of nature – and were seized by it. As the dazzling dragon-fly swoops towards their camera lens, its iridescent wings quiver with the lovers’ sensuous embrace. Joy is a moment with an eternal core.’
Veronique Helmridge-Marsillian
Doctor of Philosopy, University of Sydney