Nicolas Tcherno-Ivanenko, aka [link] is a DeviantArt painter who reminds me of a combination of Dali and Turner. He is a painter whose imagination and technique I admire a great deal.

For better or for worse, I have no formal education in art and even less patience with much of what passes for criticism, so I am neither desirous nor capable of invoking any remarks spawned of such knowledge. But in the past I have stood for hours in front of a large original Dali (until the police shooed me away) and felt in the presence of greatness, and I get the same sort of feeling at looking at many of Nicolas’ paintings. I can stare at them for some time and not get tired of them. The combination of technique and imagination is, in my judgment, masterful.

One of the interesting things about his work is to be found in a reply to a comment made when some one asked him what tools he used while painting. He went through an inventory of brushes and palette knives, the included fingers and anything at hand. I liked that remark because I consider my fingers my best blending tool, and have been known to grab a spoon, needle, and even the cat’s flea comb to create an effect.

Most of all, I can guess never having watched him work, that he is not afraid of the paint.

Here are four of his works that I favor:

[link]
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Of himself he writes in his philosphy stateement on his web page:
....Self-taught painter since 1999, I have not ceased using the techniques of the great masters in order to serve myself... whoever explores past territories, those have brought the past to the "painted truth"....
....My first preoccupation remains to flee the decorative but to sublimate human ways, the social and psychological characters fully linked to the complexity always typical of contemporary society. And better than all other mediums, I think that oil is able to render this new reality. (Translation mine--I claim all errors, but not proudly)
His full artist statement in French can be found here:
[link]