If you’re going to be a painter in Russia, you probably need to know how to paint snow and ice.Anatoley Solyutin, whose show ‘Russian Landscapes’ is currently on display at the Bermuda Society of Arts (BSoA) Gallery at City Hall, has a special way of bringing out the sparkle of a Russian winter. Looking at his work is like looking at a scene through frosted glass.“I had a teacher who said the most difficult part of painting is to actually paint water and the sky, and I pay particular attention to these two subjects,” said Mr Solyutin. “It is very difficult to use red and white in oil painting. I spend a lot of time mixing different shades. You would never see a pure white colour, it would be shaded with some other colour. When you look at the picture, you shouldn’t see how much work the painting took, because a painter has to portray some kind of joy and festivity. All the work and hardship has to be on the shoulders of the artist rather than on the painting.”Mr Solyutin speaks no English, and spoke to The Royal Gazette through Valeria Barbieri. Mrs Barbieri and husband Emilio invited Mr Solyutin here and arranged the BSoA show for him. Mrs Barbieri is originally from Moscow, and met Mr Solyutin through her mother.“I am very fond of his work,” she said. “He is from a town east of Moscow. They have a beautiful monastery there called New Jerusalem Monastery on the Istra River. Mr Solyutin paints there often. My mother met him there and fell in love with his art. That was six years ago and they struck up a friendship. We invited him to Bermuda.”Most of Mr Solyutin’s paintings are about Russia, although there are some from visits to Germany and Poland. He is now looking forward to doing some painting in Bermuda. He was astonished by the colours of the ocean here, and also the brightness of the flowers and subtropical scenery.“The majority of his work is done around the place where he lives,” said Mrs Barbieri. “In Russia it is cold, although we do have hot summers. He has to find his streak with the colours of Bermuda. He has to do a little prep work to mix the colours and get them to be realistic for Bermuda.”It is said that much of Mr Solyutin’s work has a musical quality. This is possibly because he originally trained at a music school in Russia.He plays the accordion and guitar and writes his own guitar songs. When he was 21, one of his friends brought him to an art exhibition and he was so impressed by it that the next day he bought some paint and canvas and started painting.When he was 36, some of his friends brought his paintings to the Moscow Art and Graphics University where some of the professors asked where he had studied art.They were impressed when they learned he had no formal training. He was admitted to the university and he graduated with a degree in art a few years later.“Today, I spend most of my money on buying paint and canvases because they are not cheap in Russia,” he said.He uses a block technique to apply paint that makes it look as though the work was painted with a knife, but it is actually brushwork.“It is my style,” said Mr Solyutin. “Michaelangelo has said that art and painting has to look as a sculpture. That has influenced me a lot.”Some of his work is represented in museums in Russia and he has had many exhibitions, such as one in the Centre for International Trade in Moscow in 1992.He was born in 1937, and has lived through great changes in his country including the rise and fall of Communism.“Because I don’t do political art, or portraits of political leaders, just landscapes mostly, I haven’t had any help from the government,” he said.“But some of the museums have tried to encourage me. I have a lot of people who are fond of my work and try to help me organise art exhibitions.“My reward for my art is the appreciation and the people.You have to be further from the leaders, and closer to the art.”His show in Studio A at the BSoA is on until May 18.Useful website: www.bsoa.bm.