New art

Impasto is a painting technique in which the artists preferred pigment, which is most often oil painting, is applied so thickly to the canvas that the brush strokes or palette tool marks are clearly visible to the viewer. Only a very small number of artists ever attempt to take this type of technique to the extreme of using only the palette knife, and not the paint brush, to apply their paints to the canvas. It is an even rarer few who master this type of expert technique. It can take an artist of even advanced expertise many years to become proficient using this technique in this way.

Palette knife painting can be accomplished using acrylic paint pigments but oil painting with this type of tool really takes the technique to the highest level. Because of the longer drying time associated with this style of painting the artist is able to go back into the piece and rework sections and add deepening layers of pigment and detail to the fine art piece. Oil painting using the palette knife offers a unique way to add in both varying textures and colorful layers of paint rich in pigment and color while still expressing a rare energy. Fine art painting, because of the freedom it offers the artist, creates dramatic works of art that recreate movement and light in a way that few other painting techniques can hope to match.

Utilizing the palette knife in this unique way when oil painting offers the artist a freedom few can achieve when using the more conventional painting techniques. It frees the hand, as well as the mind, opening the painter's ability to express themselves and allowing them to tap directly into their subconscious. Using the technique in painting for the past forty years, since being a student at the world renowned Vitebsk Art School, and credits palette knife painting with making it possible for the artist to capture his personal optimism and positive life perspective in his fine art landscape paintings, flower paintings, cityscapes, and music paintings which are all available in worldwide art gallery settings, at art auction, and as limited edition art prints. He has become such a well known master of the palette knife oil painting technique that his work is instantly recognizable and never imitable. It is impossible to mistake an palette knife oil painting for anything else.

Today Leonid Afremov has over 4,000 paintings, in 60 galleries all over the world in Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Israel and the U.S. Afremov moved to the U.S. because of his art and his extraordinary ability as a person to help enrich the American Art Culture. The Afremovs launched a new art auction website in October 2008 where visitors can purchase his paintings directly from the artist starting at $1.