Mikalai Zalozny was born in Ukraine and studied in Belarus. He graduated from the Minsk Art College and the Belarusian State Theatre and Art Institute. The artist would eventually teach at both his almae matres, mentoring several generations of artists. As a young man, he traversed the roads of the final stage of the Great Patriotic War as a soldier. Mikalai Zalozny’s graduation project, the painting “Сapitulation”, is full of sincerity and piercing power, based off his impressions of one of the dramatic episodes at the end of the war. It was highly regarded by Boris Ioganson and Viktor Oreshnikov, outstanding masters of Soviet art.
The palette became the very essence of Mikalai Zalozny’s life. It is a tool for mixing paints, a mirror of the artist’s inner world, and the life path of this brilliant master of colour and teacher. Through his palette, he depicted his own destiny and reminisced about his contemporaries’ lives; he shared memories and impressions, blending the paints of joy, trial, and discovery to create a masterpiece through the harmony of colour. The master’s palette consists of countless unique brushstrokes, where every shade is inimitable, where the darkest tones create depth and contrast, and where emotion and events transform into a vibrant portrait of everyday life. The artist, like a sculptor, modelled the world from this colourful fabric. He created a real, breathing, pulsating chromatic environment. Owing to his perfect command of colour, Mikalai Zalozny masterfully played with an infinite spectrum of shades.
Every work by the artist is like a musical chord, an overture to a symphony of colours. The colours of Mikalai Zalozny’s paintings make a grandiose symphony of life triumphing over death, evoking a sense of joy found within trials and sufferings. The major and minor notes in his canvases draw the viewer in with the sheer happiness of existence itself. All of this is conveyed through the very essence of painting: colours, their combinations, hues, tones, and the nature of bold brushstrokes – full of love, passion, and anger. The impasto texture of the artist’s paintings is remarkably tactile.
The anniversary exhibition “Mikalai Zalozny. The Palette of Life” at the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus spans the artist’s creative period from 1965 to 1982, following his evolution from a promising young talent to a mature, accomplished master. The genre range of Mikalai Zalozny’s creative legacy on display includes narrative and thematic paintings, landscapes, still lifes, and portraits.
The exhibition features the artist’s works from the collection of the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus, Belarusian Union of Artists, the artist’s estate and private collections, as well as photocopies and photographs from the archives of the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus, the library of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts, and the artist’s family archive. The exhibition is complemented by cartoons of Mikalai Zalozny drawn by his colleague Mikhail Lisouski (on loan from the Belarusian State Archive-Museum of Literature and Art) and the master’s own palette, preserved by the family of his friend, the artist Aliaksandr Semiletau.
Exhibition curator: Anastasia Karneiko, leading researcher at the Department of Belarusian Art of the 20th–21st centuries.
The exhibition “Mikalai Zalozny. The Palette of Life” will be on display at the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus (exhibition building, 24 Karl Marx Street, 3rd floor, hall 1) from 27 June to 9 August 2026.
