Mykola Bilous
POLYSTYLISM
15.11.2019-24.02.2020
Kyiv
Blindfold, acrylic on canvas, 150х110 cm
Who’s gonna win? acrylic on canvas, 140х200 cm
Plumber, acrylic on canvas, 141х201 cm
On vacation, acrylic on canvas, 140х190 cm
Hooligan, acrylic on canvas, 141х201 cm
Booth, acrylic on canvas, 200х100 cm
Horizontal bar, acrylic on canvas, 200х156 cm
Lake, acrylic on canvas, 150х150 cm
Norm, acrylic on canvas, 140х170 cm
Stop, acrylic on canvas, 200х140 cm
Cafe, acrylic on canvas, 201х140 cm
Corner, acrylic on canvas, 150х100 cm

 The new project by Mykola Bilous, as usual, provides the viewer with the opportunity to feel a unique visual experience. The title of the project itself contains the subtlest irony, since the creative vision of the author is not at all eclectic. The artist has his own unique holistic recognizable style. 

Being a sophisticated colorist, Bilous harmoniously combines colors in his paintings, placing the characters in the radiant haze of the base tone he invented. This tone is one of the most characteristic distinguishing features of his art, representing a mixture of the three primary colors - yellow, red and blue. 

With the help of this unusual mixture, he creates a bewitching vibrating atmosphere on the canvases, immersing the heroes of his canvases in a state similar to a cinematic dream. The irreality of what is happening is emphasized by the lack of black in the main composition; the total black color is used by the author of «Polystylism» only as of the color of air. At the same time, the canvases are saturated with naturalness, they breathe. The heroes of his paintings seem to be present in the mise-en-scenes on a brightly lit film set, representing the performers of the main roles in the dramas of their own lives.

Putting paints on the canvas in his unique manner, Mykola Bilous creates portraits filled with genuine feelings and sharp antagonisms, expressing with the help of color harmony the subtle nuances of emotional tension in the air between the characters from the paintings. 

The artist avoids the dictatorship of figurativeness by setting the mood for works with paints that usually prevail over the plot of the paintings, expressing deeply personal experiences with a dramatic play of colors, which nevertheless add up to memorable touching soul-moving compositions with pronounced characters and unmistakably readable depth of relationships. His works are poster-like only at first, inexperienced look: a long contemplation of paintings by Bilous opens up to an attentive viewer three-dimensional space, reminiscent of a cast of an unforgettable secret memory, remaining in memory forever. As a post-media artist, Bilous creates inimitable retro-textured portraits, characterized by the integrity of features and the unity of style, which have become rarities in the modern era of fragmented clip thinking.

Pavlo Luzhetsky