Original artwork description:

Zakhar Shevchuk’s White Square Nude (2016) is a meditation on contrast and coexistence. Painted in oil on canvas (110x90 cm), it began with a sketch and was refined through direct work with a live model. The seated nude is rendered with clarity and restraint, reflecting Shevchuk’s academic training and his commitment to capturing mood and presence.

The background transforms the work into something more. Instead of depicting a realistic setting, the artist inserted a stark white square, a clear reference to Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematism. This juxtaposition forces viewers to consider how two radically different visual languages – realism and abstraction – can meet within a single canvas. Flesh and geometry, warmth and coldness, body and idea stand side by side, altering each other through subtle tonal exchange.

For collectors, the painting demonstrates Shevchuk’s transition from disciplined realism to a practice infused with philosophical questioning. White Square Nude stands as both a nude study and a conceptual statement, revealing the artist’s desire to test boundaries and create dialogue between past and future traditions.

Materials used:

Oil

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