Anatoly Kukharchuk

Light and shadow are always inseparably intertwined, both in life and in art. Their interaction, opposition, and struggle accompany the human being throughout an entire lifetime, unfolding simultaneously in the external world and within the inner landscape of the individual. At times, darkness seems to fill almost the whole of our lived space and, as in the Black Square, can evoke a sense of obscurity, of absolute emptiness. Yet shadows exist only insofar as they reveal their opposite essence – light. Even when it first appears as nothing more than a tiny point against a field of darkness, light nonetheless carries within it the image of a victorious force. This is the mystery of the Black Square, as it is the mystery of life itself: the light concealed within it, even the smallest fraction of which sustains optimism and hope. No matter how saturated with negativity the world around us may appear, there always remains a luminous spot, a faint ray capable of awakening hope and faith in the coming triumph of light.

The photographs presented invite each viewer to independently determine the relationship between light and shadow, light and darkness within the images, and to follow a path of interpretation toward the idea of the creation of light.

The Black Square embodies the darker aspects of life – the gloom of the surrounding world and of the human soul. It is a concentration of our problems, shortcomings, inner negativity, malicious thoughts and desires, and dark deeds. Yet life is never utterly devoid of light. It always offers the possibility of hope, the vision of at least a small spark of illumination. For this reason, darkness in these photographs is never without the light hidden within its depths. The mystery of darkness lies precisely in the light it contains.

In these works, black is not a background, as it is in certain still lifes. For Malevich, black was a symbol of emptiness and death. In this respect, I share a similar position: black functions as a symbol of gloom, darkness, and dark forces. They are numerous and often occupy a large portion of the frame. Yet light invariably breaks through the darkness. It may be minimal – a thread or a small speck – but this light carries within it the promise of an eventual triumph of light.

The human being is the creator of light within their own soul. To bring light into the world required the action of a higher power; to bring light into one’s own inner world is possible only through personal effort. At times, this demands titanic exertion; at others, it may take an entire lifetime. The issue is not that darkness within the soul is so overwhelming, but rather that darkness exists almost effortlessly, without intention. The birth of light always requires effort, tension, and deliberate work upon oneself and upon external conditions. It is labor – daily, time-consuming, and not always yielding immediate results. This labor endures as long as a person is capable of desire and of striving toward self-improvement and inner development.

The Mystery of the Black Square is a large-scale inquiry into the nature of photography within the context of its two-hundred-year history. While Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 sought merely to fix light, Anatoly Kukharchuk transforms this act into an epic statement. In his work, photography ceases to function as a mirror of reality and becomes an act of creation – the extraction of meaning from primordial chaos.

The artist enters into a dialogue with Kazimir Malevich, transforming suprematist stasis into a dynamic process of emergence. Through the method of “optical archaeology,” Kukharchuk demonstrates that the Black Square is not the end of art, but a living, vibrating field. The exhibition unfolds as a philosophical journey in three acts, where the visual language of the avant-garde intertwines with the ideas of Kant and Nietzsche.

For the artist, this is not a “zero of form,” but a sacred womb containing life within.

“The mystery of darkness lies in the light it conceals. The Black Square is merely a form – one we are free to fill either with death or with the coming triumph of life,” – Anatoly Kukharchuk.

Anatoly Kukharchuk is a photographic artist, philosopher, and researcher of visual meaning. His artistic method is grounded in the search for profound correspondences between the external forms of the visible world and the inner states of the human soul. For Kukharchuk, the camera is a tool for the “creation of light,” and each photograph is the result of sustained observation of how life breaks through entropy and emptiness. His works invite an inner dialogue in which the viewer becomes a co-author in the emergence of meaning from darkness.

Light is required for roles; darkness is required for truth. An encounter with one’s own darkness is not a sign of weakness – it is the highest form of courage available to the contemporary individual. By stripping away masks, we relinquish familiar supports in order to confront what has long been concealed.

Black does not consume – it opens potential. Only by accepting the abyss within do we acquire the right to create.

There are no accidental gestures here. Here, we come to a pause – to slowly, layer by layer, shed obsolete dogmas like worn skin. And within this silence, within this honest emptiness, we wait for the faint breath of the present to emerge from the ashes of the past.

Look inward: what begins to surface through the darkness?

The Black Square is not a terminal point in the history of art, but a fertile substrate, ready to receive form – a space where darkness ceases to be an adversary and becomes a primordial silence longing for light. Here, light is not an incidental flash, but the outcome of immense labor and ethical choice.

It is a “thread of light” breaking through the monolith of darkness – a symbol of conscious effort toward inner transformation. Light does not arise on its own; it is brought into being by human agency. Where the abyss once appeared as a dead end, light marked the laying of the first stone of the spiritual temple.

Your inner light is the flame you managed to carry through the storm of your own chaos.

Our inner temple is not erected in an illusory “tomorrow,” but in the pulse of the present moment. We build it continuously, within the very flow of life. This temple is intangible, yet undeniably real. The secret of harmony lies not in the conquest of shadow, but in the ability to use it as a stable framework.

Here lies the triumph of vital force: to transform darkness into a pedestal from which light may reach its summit.

Surrounding reality – from elementary natural structures to complex organic forms – serves as the foundation for the formation of spiritual space. The creation of the “inner temple” is not a teleological projection into a distant future, but an affirmation of being in the here and now.

Eternity is not endless duration, but the absence of time. It is present – in this very instant.

Anatoly Kukharchuk was born on December 15, 1951, in the village of Tevli, Kobryn District, Brest Region. He graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at the Belarusian State University in 1974. His professional background in print media, combined with many years of work in public administration and social policy, shaped an analytical mode of thinking and a sustained attention to underlying structures of reality – qualities that later became fundamental to his artistic method.

Kukharchuk became interested in photography during his school years; however, his conscious return to the medium took place in 2016. The emergence of mobile photography represented for the artist not merely a technological convenience, but a fundamentally new mode of visual thinking. The accelerated process of image-making allowed him to shift focus away from technical procedures toward the capture of fleeting states of the world – toward the moment as a carrier of meaning. The camera thus became an instrument of an instantaneous philosophical gesture, a means of holding a state before it dissolves into the flow of time.

For Anatoly Kukharchuk, photography is neither documentation nor illustration, but a form of self-knowledge and inner archaeology. His works address the deeper layers of human experience, where the visual image functions as a conduit to intimate states of consciousness. The act of photographing is conceived as the removal of accumulated layers of lived experience, a return to a primal mode of sensing – to an inner source long obscured by the density of life.

Paradoxically, it is precisely maturity that grants the artist a youthful optic: his photographs retain a capacity for primary wonder, for acute perception of light, space, and silence. The image often emerges as if outside of time and place, in a condition of pure presence.

Since 2021, Anatoly Kukharchuk has been actively engaged in exhibition practice. He has held 21 solo exhibitions in Brest, Gomel, Grodno, Mogilev, and Minsk. Among his key projects are The Cry of a Bird, City, Illuminations, and Harmony of Light, in which the theme of light is consistently developed as an inner effort and as a form of resistance to entropy.

Alongside his exhibition work, the artist publishes authorial album-calendars based on completed projects, approaching them as autonomous forms of visual statement.

Since 2021, he has been a member of the “Minsk” People’s Photo Club.
Since 2024, he has been a member of the Belarusian Public Association of Photographers.