Ales Shaternik, renowned Belarusian-American sculptor, artist and dissident was born in 1940. He graduated from Minsk Art College in 1964 and Belarusian Theater and Art Institute in 1967. He studied under the guidance of well known sculptors such as I.Glebau, V.Gusev, G.Muramtsau, Z. Azgur and other Eastern European masters.
Ales works in decorative and monumental sculpture as well as other media. He started exhibiting his works in the early sixties of the last century. Since then, his sculptures appeared in the collections of literally every major museum
in Belarus, and some other major museums in different countries. Ales’ monumental sculptures and memorial plagues can be seen on the streets of different European cities including Vilnius, Tallinn, Minsk, Moscow, Pollock and others.
Ales also paints in oil. Well, known Russian art critic and art collector, organizer of CASE Museum of Russian Contemporary Art, Alexander Glezer qualified Ales’s style as neo-impressionism. Ales created multiple beautiful paintings of Eastern European and North-American landscapes and a set of gorgeous paintings of Venice. Religious and architectural themes are also present in some of his paintings.
Ales' works were exhibited at the State Tretyakov Gallery (The National Museum of Russian Fine Art) in Moscow, the White House in Washington DC,
the US Congress in Washington DC, Estonian Parliament in Tallinn Estonia, City Hall in Oslo Norway, the Rutgers University, Zimmerly Art Museum in New Brunswick New Jersey, the CASE Museum of Russian Contemporary Art in Jersey City, Belarusian Museum in Brooklyn New York, the International Stella Gallery in Paris, France, as well as a number of other major Belarusian art museums. His works can also be found in number of private collections in the USA, Russia, Italy, Israel, Holland, Germany, Belgium, Belarus and other countries.From the seventies Ales has been involved in a dissident movement in former Soviet Union and after its collapse continued struggle against dictatorial regime in Belarus.
Ales is a member of the Belarusian Artist Union and dissident artists’ group “Pogonia”
In 2019 as political situation in Belarus deteriorated significantly, Ales permanently moved to the United States. He currently lives and works in West Chester, Pennsylvania.