# Dark colors, overcrowded spaces, distorted images. A super-short review of Vladislav Stalmakhov's drawings

Vladimir Vladimirovich Zalesski

Dark colors, overcrowded spaces, distorted images. A super-short review of Vladislav Stalmakhov's drawings.

Dark colors, overcrowded spaces, distorted images. A super-brief review of Vladislav Stalmakhov's drawings.


In the article 'A well-known Belarusian artist created paintings about an everyday life in the Zhodino detention center' (December 5, 2020 at 15:38) TUT.BY / Photo: facebook.com/stalmakhov.vladislav readers are told that 'the famous Belarusian artist Vladislav Stalmakhov published a series of drawings from the "Zhodino plein air". The sketches illustrate the everyday life of the artist's cellmates in the detention center in Zhodino, where he served 10 days of arrest. " (https://news.tut.by/culture/710311.html?c).


We did not have the opportunity, at first, to carefully look at the drawings of Vladislav Stalmakhov. We glanced at one-two drawings and made for myself a note: "Dark colors, overcrowded space, distorted images."


After a while, we had the opportunity to look at all the drawings, one by one - more closely.


The impression of Vladimir Stelmakhov's drawings has changed slightly. Drawings are filled with a psychological features, subtle details. They captured the emotions of people who were imprisoned: irony and self-irony, horror and fear, the feeling of helplessness of a person captured by hellish forces, self-respect, patience, endurance, hatred, the desire to remain an intellectual and a thinking person, the ability to adapt (with a self-ironical attitude to himself) ...


All of these drawings deserve to be listed one by one:


1) 'Detained at the ROVD [a kind of a police department] '. - Beaten, but not broken, feeling the implausibility of the situation, a person.


2) 'Arrest of property and search. A poll in the ROVD '. - Two events are combined in one picture. Two of Cyclops-type creatures in the background. In the foreground is a kind madame in a bridle.


3) "A court session in Zhodino". - Reminiscent of a scene from "Viy" by Nikolai Gogol. (https://tutby.gcdn.co/720x720s/n/10/8/risun_5_dekar.jpg)


4) 'In the first 8-bed cell we sat 24 people'. - The artist managed to demonstrate emotions - an attempt by people to maintain self-respect for themselves. (https://tutby.gcdn.co/720x720s/n/07/7/ris_5_deks.jpg)


5) "We were ten people in the second cell of capacity for 6 people (night)." - A bed of iron strips, people sleep "a head of a person with (nearby) the other figure's feet". (https://tutby.gcdn.co/720x720s/n/04/a/risunki_5_dekabrya_god.jpg)


6) "A sleeping man in a jail cell." - A household sketch. A bed of iron strips, without a mattress, a towel under the head. An attempt to hide under a jacket [jacket replaces blanket]. (https://tutby.gcdn.co/n/04/1/photo_2020-12-05_13-57-16.jpg)


7) "Walk 15 minutes". - A household sketch. A stone well filled with people. Some of them smoke. Above - a dense lattice. (https://tutby.gcdn.co/n/08/10/risunki_5_dek.jpg)


8) "We made checkers [draughts] from bread." - Household sketch. Intelligentsia in the cell. They strain the intellect. (https://tutby.gcdn.co/n/00/b/photo_2020-12-05_13-57-18.jpg)


9) "Once we were given a fish. The fish was triangular in cross-section. It was delicious." - A feeling of creepiness ... (https://tutby.gcdn.co/n/08/b/photo_2020-12-05_13-57-19.jpg)


We have not (yet) looked at other works from the works of Vladislav Stalmakhov; we cannot say anything about them ...


These drawings are good works of a good artist ...


December 7, 2020 19:53


Translation from Russian into English: December 8, 2020 11:10.

Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'Тёмные цвета, переполненное пространство, искаженные изображения. Супер-краткая рецензия на рисунки Владислава Стальмахова'.