Nicolas Kovalenko

Nicolas, a trained architect and from Nantes by adoption, got his degree from l'École Supérieure d'Architecture in 2010, and a few years later, took evening classes at l'École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts to focus on learning pictorial techniques. An independent architect and painter, Nicolas works towards developing his projects solo or with his partner Joanna Szelag, who is a creator herself.

While creating a canvas, the artist is driven by a pure desire to combine formal subtlety with spontaneity in strokes By saying that, “the pursuit of subtlety involves doing your very best, being detail-oriented...and it is this meticulousness that kills spontaneity which is quite direct, even intuitive", Nicolas states the assumption that guides his entire pictorial practice. This arduous task which he invariably tries to take on pushes the painter to his very limits forcing him to forever reinvent his craft to try and get closer to his ultimate goal.

Fuelled by his keen interest in anything related to the production of images, his leanings towards painting would take over a little later to finally end up becoming his favourite medium today. An admirer of the works of Provençal painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Nicolas paints his canvases with acrylic colours using a range of shades that are relatively realistic put together by him based on intense lighting effects. Considered by the artist to be a "happy set of accidents", each urban landscape and scene of everyday life is therefore perceived to be the visual rendering of an inner struggle blending affects and expectations.