Everyone knows about self-portraits, right? Here I am with a self-interview.
Originally I came from Russia. I am a December girl, loving winter, snowflakes, snowstorms, icicles and frost. I lived in several countries (Kazakhstan, Russia, Thailand, Ireland), but now I am in United Kingdom. I started to paint before I learnt how to write. In ex USSR countries are a lot of state (ruled and regulated by government) art schools. I started my education in one of the most amazing schools in Kazakhstan and finished in Russia. During my study I took part in several exhibitions but it was a long time ago and honestly I do not remember it quite good. But what I do remember is a mindfulness of creativity.
Since I first realised that I can make metaphysical idea become a real piece of art, I mean the one you can physically touch, see, feel as an emotion... It is mind-blowing! I can't help myself stop do it over and over again.
After art school I was painting and destroying all my art for almost 15 years. I was sure that as long as such genius Artist like Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Vincent Van Gogh, Otto Dix existed I am a useless piece of crap so there was no point even to try. And the society itself used to think (I am talking about ex USSR countries) that Artists are time-wasters and will end their lives in poverty.
Than one day in Dublin one of my sketches accidentally was seen by one of my friends. She said that it is cool and I should start painting again [Hello to to you, dear, and I thank you], that probably somewhere around there are people who would find my art great and would like to have it. That inspired me to give it a go.
I constantly feel like I want to try everything, as much as I can and I do not get enough time. I wish I had several lives to spend them all into isolated place with endless art supply stock. All my art start with the emotion. I always paint emotions and which medium or technique I will use mostly depends on the emotional part of the idea.
I guess I am one of the most hectic artist around, I do not have my own subject, my medium, my theme. I do what I want and how I feel it at exact period of time. All of my painting can be explained from my point of view and I really hope it makes my people around feel something too.
I literally feel itching of my hands when I see heavy body acrylic paints and large canvases. I want to keep experimenting with palette knife and impasto. As I know there are two ways people feel about impasto - first part assume that technique itself is very easy and there is nothing special at all about it. Other part thinks that you do not get enough control with palette knife so it is literally impossible to predict how will painting works out. I feel that it is tricky technique but I do feel that I have control. So it is worth trying!
During one of the exams on art school there was an academic graphic sketch part. We had to sketch a gypsum male head. It was allowed to use pencil and eraser and nothing else. The exam last 3 hours and it was almost over when I decided that I need to check my measurements with a ruler (which was strictly forbidden) so I am pulling the ruler out of my pocket, starting to check proportions and two seconds later I realized that Professor was standing behind me all the time. He ripped my A3 paper sheet in tiny pieces and I had to start over again. This exam took me 7 hours instead of 3. I was exhausted and still hate all this academical sketching. I wish I could make someone else feel something about my art. They may love it, or hate it, or consider it stupid, but I want them to feel. Do you feel?