About Me

Vladimir Nikolayevich Vidineev was born on 10 January 1957 in the village of Bazlyk, Bizhbulyak district, Bashkiria. His mother was Alexandra Alexeyevna Markova, his father Nikolai Vasilyevich Vidineev. All his ancestors were village workers. As one of the Russian classics aptly put it, we all come from the countryside. His parents soon moved to Kuibyshev (now Samara), where he spent his childhood and school years. The industrial outskirts of the city, with its factories and plants. His father worked as a driver, his mother as a nurse in a children’s clinic. Of the many clubs at the Palace of Pioneers, he and his friend Vitya Yeroshin chose the art studio. As a child he dreamed of becoming an artist. He never thought that dream would come true. After the eighth grade he was fortunate to enter the Penza Art School named after K.A. Savitsky. It is a true temple of art, where teaching studios and an art gallery share one building. For a long time the elegant red-brick building with white stucco around the windows was the most beautiful in the city. His studies were interrupted by service in the Soviet Army in the Far East, in the settlement of Magdagachi in Amur Oblast. After graduating from the school in 1978 he returned to Samara and worked in the design workshops of «Kuibyshevbytreklam». He has lived in Nizhnevartovsk since 1979. He married there (his wife is Zaituna Radikovna Girfanova) and his children were born there: his son Ilya and his daughter Irina. He worked at the Oil and Gas Production Directorate named after V.I. Lenin and at the city art workshop. He was accepted into the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He feels equally close to both the moral code of the builder of communism and the Christian commandments. He took part in city, district and regional art exhibitions.

In 2000 the Tyumen branch of the Union of Artists of Russia placed their trust in him and he was accepted into the Union of Artists, of which he is proud. For several years he worked as a freelance artist. Since 2005 he has been teaching academic painting in the Department of Fine Arts at Nizhnevartovsk State University. Teaching is what ensures his creative growth. He teaches students and together with them learns to view his own work critically. He is grateful to the rector of the university Sergei Ivanovich Gorlov and the president of the university Anatoly Karpovich Karpov for their attention and support, both to him personally and to the staff of the Department of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Arts and Design.

VLADIMIR VIDINEEV’S ART

Vladimir Nikolayevich Vidineev is an artist from Nizhnevartovsk, a painter and graphic artist. His work spans different genres — still life, portrait, narrative compositions — but regardless of genre, each of his paintings carries a hidden meaning; they are always paintings for reflection, a dialogue with the viewer. Landscape holds a special place in his work. Vidineev’s landscapes show his commitment to the Russian realist tradition in depicting his native nature and his ability «to make the most prosaic subjects poetic». His work is marked by a bright spirit — motifs of thoughtful reverie, expectation and hope recur. At the same time, great importance is given to an interest in the real, objective appearance of the world, direct observation of nature, and the desire to depict reality realistically. Preserving a generalized perception of the world, he creates a readily recognizable landscape «true to nature». The air, space and light in his paintings are conveyed with the vital truthfulness of genuine realism. His colour is rich and varied, with a wealth of tonal relations. Each colour has many additional shades and thus becomes remarkably saturated and sonorous. The sense of immediacy and naturalness in the compositional structure heightens the realist vitality of the works and sharpens the expressiveness of the artist’s main idea. In Vidineev’s landscapes realism and the poeticization of natural and urban settings are combined organically; they are deeply spiritual and evocative.

V.N. Vidineev has been a member of the Union of Artists of Russia (painting section) since 2000. His works are held in the collections of the Nizhnevartovsk Museum of Local History named after T.D. Shuvayev and in the museums of Megion, Langepas and Khanty-Mansiysk. The artist has donated series of works to the Children’s Art Schools of Nizhnevartovsk. He is actively involved in city-wide events, serves on the jury of city fine-art competitions for pupils of children’s art schools and general schools, and gives masterclasses in plein air painting. In 2009 he completed a three-month internship at the I.E. Repin Academy Institute in Saint Petersburg, and also worked at the creative retreats in Svetlogorsk (Kaliningrad Oblast), Pereslavl-Zalessky, and the I.E. Repin Academic Dacha in Vyshny Volochyok. Vladimir Nikolayevich currently continues to work as an associate professor in the Department of Fine Arts of the Faculty of Arts and Design at Nizhnevartovsk State University. Alongside his creative work he pursues research, takes part in academic conferences with papers, and writes articles and theses. His research interests include the development of contemporary fine art and the preservation of national traditions in teaching the disciplines «Academic Painting», «Painting» and «Composition».

V.N. Vidineev is a laureate of the Prize of the Department of Culture and Art of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug – Yugra in the field of professional fine art (2005). He has been awarded certificates and letters of thanks from the administration of Nizhnevartovsk State University (2006 and 2008); a jubilee Certificate of Honour from the Head of the City for many years of fruitful work and personal contribution to the development of Nizhnevartovsk (2007); Certificates of Honour from the Department of Education and Youth Policy of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug – Yugra (2009, 2011). In 2009 he was awarded a Certificate of Honour from the Board of the Union of Artists of Russia for achievements in art and for promoting the development of fine art. His creative achievements were recognized with a Laureate Diploma of the interregional exhibition «Great Urals XII» in Chelyabinsk. He has also been awarded a Certificate of Honour from the Nizhnevartovsk City Duma (2013), a Letter of Thanks from the Chairman of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug – Yugra Duma (2015), and an Honorary Diploma from the Nizhnevartovsk city administration. In 2017 he was granted the title «Honoured Cultural Worker of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug». Vladimir Nikolayevich Vidineev enjoys well-deserved authority and respect among fellow artists, teachers and students at Nizhnevartovsk University. M.M. Novikova, art historian, member of the Union of Artists of Russia.

It is equally bad if a work of art is overly photographic and if one cannot understand what the artist wanted to say. «Genuine art lies on the boundary between likeness and unlikeness; complete likeness is too vulgar, unlikeness is deceit.» These words belong to the artist Qi Baishi (1863–1957), whose paintings charm through the union of genuine reality and poetic fantasy, endowing the works with true beauty. Perhaps a certain departure from reality is a measure of individuality, creative search and «innovation» in art? The specific features of a creative method are also called manner. And when one speaks of manner with a negative connotation, one speaks of mannerism.