“I am interested in a certain aspect that appears for one moment and will never come back in the same way again. It may only be an impression, or even something that I imagined. I deal mostly with feelings. I don’t paint portraits, even if sometimes I paint pictures of individual children. The most important thing to me is to catch the uncatchable expression on the face.”

Igor Melnikov grew up in a remote part of Russia. From a young age, he was passionate about art. He consumed black and white art books, especially loving the paintings of Vermeer, Wyeth, and Rembrandt. It was the fragility of nature and the essence/description of light that struck Melnikov. Later, when Melnikov was free to travel to see such masterworks in person, he realized that they were completely different than he had imagined, from the black and white reproductions. He then realized that the viewer creates half of the painting in his own mind, and from his own experience base.

Melnikov tries to create this platform for viewers of his works. He paints the child–a pure vessel of humanity, or the landscape, in a neutral state, leaving the viewer to “create” his own experience and interpretation of the painting. Igor Melnikov’s works have been exhibited in numerous museums throughout the world, and books have been published about his work.