David Miretsky once lived and painted in Cincinnati. He moved here 27 years ago from the former Soviet Union. His first solo show took place at Closson's art gallery. He was kicked out of the Soviet Union, he says, “a persona non grata because of a small demonstration with a political tone.”

Miretsky self-portrait | ZOOM |

        In 1979 he moved to New York, where he still lives and paints. His work is shown at the prestigious OK Harris gallery. Ironically, the National Museum of Art in Kiev, Ukraine, has invited him to exhibit in a one-man show. Starting Friday, you can find 14 of his latest works at Closson's.

        “My paintings are about people,” he says. “They are either sitting at home in a family gathering or there is a man and woman sitting across from each other at a table. I paint the glorious congruity between people that seldom occurs. But I imagine it.”

        Although Mr. Miretsky's work has been described as a hybrid of primitive and classical styles, he sees his work as genre painting. The everyday subject matter in his paintings more than supports that categorization. But there is alchemy at work, as well.

        In the hands of Mr. Miretsky, who turns 63 on Saturday, an uneventful scene in a butcher's shop becomes a stained-glass-colored tableaux with a mysterious narrative that pulls in the viewer. In “Nude” we see a lovely but hugely obese woman transfixed by her image in a mirror.

IF YOU GO

• What: The paintings of David Miretsky   • When: Friday-June 14; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday   • Where: Closson's Gallery, 401 Race St., downtown   • Artwork: Prices range from $2,500-$22,000   • Information: 762-5510

        “When I first moved to this country people asked me if I would paint people differently,” he says. “But mine is an internal vision — like (Marc) Chagall who continued to paint his little town even after he had moved to Paris. The people come from my childhood in Kiev. In my work, all men are brothers and the women sisters.”

        This filial connection goes a bit farther. The men and women are also kin to Fernando Botero's voluptuous characters and to the luxurious embodiments of Botticelli. The subject matter often recalls the satiric portrayals of Weimar Germany by Otto Dix; the color palette is most definitely first cousin to Ukrainian folk art.

        But if he were painting in Kiev today, Mr. Miretsky says, he would not be painting “fat functioneers” but rather models.

        “I went back to Kiev and all my people were gone,” he says. “They all emigrated. If I lived there now I would paint extremely beautiful women — by American standards, models. I think it is a genetic strain.”

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