BIO: Pavel Korshun: the path to oneself through nature
My name is Pavel Korshun. I am a plein air artist from the Smolensk countryside. My story is a story of return.
My passion for painting, which I have had since childhood, temporarily gave way to graphic design. I worked with digital formats for over ten years until I realized that I found true resonance not on the screen, but in the living, breathing nature of my native land.
In 2020, I opened a home studio and began a deep, meditative exploration of color and tone. Through my abstract paintings, I sought inner peace and my own visual language.
The turning point came in 2023, when I held my first sketchbook in my hands. From that day on, my creativity broke free from the confines of the studio—out into the fields, down to the river, and out into the open air. Painting en plein air was a revelation to me: there is no room here for long deliberations or perfectionism. In these quick, bold sketches, the pure energy of the moment surges, where emotion and mood matter more than detail. It is a dialogue with nature at the speed of life.
Each of my works is not just a landscape, but a reflection of my state of mind, a fleeting impression, a fragment of that very journey toward self-discovery that I continue with every new outing.
Artist Statement: Pavel Korshun
My practice focuses on exploring an immediate and authentic response to nature. I work exclusively en plein air, using thick impasto as my primary technique. I am not interested in a detailed representation of the landscape, but rather in conveying its fleeting state—the energy of light, the dynamics of mood, and texture. Rejecting perfectionism in favor of the emotional vitality of the brushstroke is a key principle.
Having journeyed from digital design to intimate abstract explorations of tone and color, I arrived at plein air painting as a form of artistic and personal asceticism. It is a practice of total presence. My sketchbook has become a tool for “recording” a pure impression before it is overshadowed by analysis. My works are visual diary entries of a state of being, materialized moments of continuous communication with the surrounding world.
My medium is oil paint, canvas, and stiff brushes. When working quickly on location, my color palette emerges from observing the tonal relationships in nature, while bold, often rough brushstrokes capture the immediacy of my intuitive perception.
Through my work, I strive to preserve and convey to the viewer that primal, emotional experience of encountering a landscape—the one that arises before we begin to interpret it—the true “vibration of the place.”
”In quick, bold sketches, the pure energy of the moment bubbles over, where emotion and mood are more important than detail. It is a dialogue with nature at the speed of life.”