Yan Karpovich always knew he would be an artist. As he explains in his uniquely Russian way: "As a child, I was forced to draw!"

The results of this discipline can be seen in his first American solo exhibit, "Dark Days/White Nights," which runs through Oct. 31 at T Clifton Art, 2571 Broad. The show is also the central event in tonight's Broad Avenue Art Walk and coincides with his first visit to Memphis, where his sister Anna Karpovich has lived for a decade (she acted as translator the day The Commercial Appeal talked with the artist).

"We wanted to bring in a significant artist, and we were able to get Yan because his sister lives here," says T Clifton business manager Pat Brown. "We asked her, 'Does he ever exhibit outside of Europe?' He had not, but she was also hoping to get him to come for a visit, so it just worked out."

Some 15 works are featured by the St. Petersburg-based artist, 42, whose father, Georgy, headed a national artists' union in the 1970s. "Born in an atmosphere of artists," as he puts it, the younger Karpovich acquired early training and technique from his father though without the kind of imposed censure the Soviet government had once brought to bear on its artists.

Instead, a different kind of restraint can be found in Karpovich's paintings, an overall repose or "serenity," as he calls it, informed by where he grew up -- the Kolsky peninsula north of the Arctic Circle. There, the Northern Lights are but one aspect of a terrain he has captured with masterly skill through the layering of gouache, pastel and acrylic on paper. The results are paintings half awake and half asleep, an outpouring of muted passions with a touch of magic realism at once geographical and philosophical.

Says the artist, who will attend tonight's opening reception: "I was born in the type of nature where you feel the depth and the strength of it. The sky actually feels closer to you ... and when you come close to nature, your soul rests. A contemporary person is burdened by progress in the world. So reflecting on the colors and beauty and harmony of nature is a release. It gives inner peace and freedom from the commonness of life."