Exhibition of figurative painting "Living Colors of the Twilight Era" at the Central House of Artists on Krymsky Val 
Automatic translate
From December 5 to 21, 2014 in Moscow at the Central House of Artists on Krymsky Val will be held not the first joint exhibition of two artists - Nina Belokhvostova and Julia Kalmykova. They are of the same age, have been friends for a long time, once together they attended the art studio, headed by the famous landscape painter and teacher Yaroslava Borisovna Kaplan, a follower of the art and pedagogical school V.S. Shcherbakova. From the mentors, they adopted the method of free pictoriality, turned to the traditions of the Moscow school of the late XIX - first half of the XX century, and, using it in their work, they feel completely free.
This method becomes effective in the hands of people gifted, endowed with compositional and coloristic flair. However, the artist should not only be able to “grab” one or another motive from real life and depict it on canvas or on paper. A true master seeks to give this motive some additional qualities that will allow him to become not just another copy of nature, but something more significant, focusing in himself that affects the feelings and intellect not only of himself, but the emotional sphere of much more number of people. The paintings by Nina and Julia are endowed with a special property of influencing the viewer, which after the classic can be called "infectious" and which, among other things, includes an idea of the sincerity and honesty of the creator.
In search of their nature, our artists do not try to cater to someone else, whether it be an authoritative critic with their own opinions or viewers with their prejudices and preferences. They always write only what touches them themselves with their careless beauty - still lifes with the most ordinary household items, flowers, portraits of friends and acquaintances, scenes from everyday life, urban and rural Russian landscapes, as well as views of those places abroad where they had a chance to visit. But most often these are the streets and squares of their hometown - Moscow. Moreover, these are almost always those Moscow protected areas that are not yet disfigured by the disproportionate construction and destructive boom of the new era. It is clear that Moscow has never been and never will be the capital of Moscow, ceremonial and majestic. But Moscow is everyday and discreet, but warmed up with warm and soul-touching memories, they do not get tired of writing again and again.
Nina Belokhvostova’s hot affection for her native city is felt in warm red colors, which the artist puts in energetic sonorous strokes, which makes the city landscape with a square or church as close as possible to the viewer and slightly enlarged.
Nina Belokhvostova "Novokuznetskaya street"
Julia Kalmykova prefers slightly different motives and a slightly different way of their artistic presentation. First of all, it is a city space seen a little from above with streets stretching into the distance, trees, roofs of houses, shrouded in a silvery-twilight haze through which evening lanterns glow mysteriously and alluring. And even in daytime Moscow it predominantly withstands in cool cool tones, and from here arises the image of a city that is somewhat melancholic but painfully beloved.
Julia Kalmykova "Ostozhenka"
Living colors and moving, light and always resolved in a new way space of landscapes, still lifes and portraits of Nina and Julia separately and in their totality create an image of an unusually bright and yet recognizable and familiar everyday life, affecting the viewer even somehow therapeutically. Let, and for a short time, such art, firstly, help to remove the feeling of heaviness and complexity of the modern life structure. Secondly, it really leads at least some of us to the understanding that in life there is always a place for creativity. It inspires hope and warms the soul.