Do you know the twisting and turning feeling of falling down the rabbit-hole? The kind of serendipitous disorientation of following one thing that leads to another until you turn a corner and spot something that takes your breath away? That is exactly what happened when I stumbled upon our artist for Art Journey #2. I became smitten with these portraits, and I hope you will be inspired by them, too! Victor Ivanovich Zaretsky (1925-1990) was a Ukrainian-born artist who studied at the Kyiv Art Institute from 1946-1953 and showed much promise. He was considered a brilliant artist at his school and had an encyclopedic knowledge of many historic artists through his studies. He won many awards and scholarships. While in school he mastered the art of perfectly realistic paintings. After he graduated, he taught there as well. Eventually he moved away from painting in the socialist realist style (showing idealized imagery of socialist life) to embracing the Ukrainian culture and traditional folk art style in a collection called “the peasant series,” as well as images of landscapes, cities and their inhabitants. In the 1960s Zaretsky married a human-rights activist and artist in her own right, Alla Gorskaya. She was a … Continue reading Art Journey #2 – The Luminous Beauty of Victor Zaretsky