It has been a busy month of shopping and festivities for all of us, but now is a quiet time of relaxation and reflection, and what better way to relax and reflect than to look at something beautiful. There is still time to visit the Elmhurst Art Museum and take in the beauty and vision of the oil paintings of Leon Oks.

Oks’ special exhibit has been in the Elmhurst Artists’ Guild Gallery since Nov. 29 and will continue until Friday, Jan. 2. I went to the reception in early December to meet Oks and view his paintings a second time and also to talk with some guild members and other visitors. Frank Tumino, Artists’ Guild president, told me this is something new and more ambitious for the guild.

“We are attempting to reach out to a wider circle of both artists and those who appreciate art,” he said. “We’re doing this by having regular juried shows and by annually inviting highly acclaimed artists like Oks to exhibit their work.”

Oks was born in the Ukraine and lived there during World War II under communist rule. He received his formal training at the School of Fine Arts in the USSR and on his own went to study and copy the masters.

Although he worked as an artist in a government studio, he said that the communists didn’t appreciate a lot of his art because they thought that, in particular, some of his portraits seemed to be influenced by Western culture. They also thought his portrayal of women was provocative. He couldn’t exhibit many of his paintings and to this day doesn’t know what happened to the many he had to leave behind when he came to the United States in 1980.

He was 41 when he arrived here, but he was hard working and determined. He worked as a draftsman for a year, but when the U.S. economy slowed, he had to work at many menial jobs to support his family. At some point he made a portfolio of his paintings and approached two galleries. To his delight and surprise, they immediately accepted his work as part of a group show and soon after he had a solo show.

He worked as a graphic artist for many years, but in 2003 a gallery in Florence, Italy, saw his work in a book and invited him to exhibit in an international art show. Since then, he has exhibited in many other countries, so that he now can devote full time to art.

His passion is in color and in evoking and awakening the senses. When you look at his sinuous and richly colored portraits and landscapes, it is no wonder this exhibition is call “Awakenings.” His paintings have been exhibited world wide and sell for thousands of dollars. His depiction of women is unique and has a such a sculptural quality that Tumino asked Oks if he enjoyed sculpture.

“Yes,” Oks answered, “I love to sculpt, but I would need more time and a larger studio for that.”
His paintings of women, besides being sculptural, are also richly colored and reminded me of tapestries.

Also on view are a few paintings of the Ukrainian village of Zhitomir, which he said is a historic town, as well as paintings of birch trees so prevalent in that area. These paintings are also richly colored and imbued with a sense of magic and wonder rather than a reflection of the painful childhood memories of hardships during World War II, when his father was inducted into the Soviet army and was killed in the line of duty, or when, after the war, he would draw and paint at night in the kitchen, which became his nocturnal studio while his family was asleep.

Oks has won many awards. However, he remains a quiet man who loves to cook and also loves music and plays the clarinet. His art, however, is his passion.

“It is very important,” he said, “that my audience, in a very simple, perhaps old-fashioned way, gets pure enjoyment and pleasure from viewing and living with my paintings. This speaks to the power of art to transcend the troubles and realities of life and offer an alternate vision of beauty and hope.”

After I viewed his paintings, I had an opportunity to chat with some people I knew such as Julie Robbins Greenberg, who is an Artists’ Guild member and pointed out what she wrote about Oks in the book “Dreamscapes,” Adrienne Jaroscak and Charlene Lee-Frieslinger. There were many others at this reception including Natalie and Norm Reinertson, Francesca Irion, Diane Martia, Sharon Peters, Joey Szymanski, Barb Baruch, Judy Gustafson, Dennis Salaty, and Suzanne and Wes Baker.

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