Interview with the First Place Winner of our March Show – Simona Zecca
“Tulipia” by Natalya Zhadenova was selected as an “Honorable Mention” in our July show. Here is some additional information about the artist and her work.
“Since childhood I liked to draw and paint. It happened that my first specialty is finance. I made a good career in this sphere; however, it did not make me happy. I wanted to share my view with the world. At some point I decided to make this wish come true, got another education.
I was always interested in women’s inner world. I am sure that something beautiful is blooming in there. In my series “Flower ladies” I try to depict these marvelous blooms, creating different personalities and their habitudes. But above all, it is their power and nobility of character, vulnerability and sensuality that unites them. I drew inspiration for this series from old masters’ portraits. At the same time, I do not refer to specific epoch or particular character. This is not only about magnificent costumes. Grandeur of pose, regal bearing – these details I borrow to create a character.
I used pastels and velvet paper for this series. These mediums possess maximum tactility, which allows me to enhance the realism of an image, highlight luxury of the apparels and recreate velvety texture of the flowers, make them almost tangible.
I often work with laborious techniques and sometimes need several months to finish a work, so I got used to solicitude with only my family keeping me company. Isolation is usual, though not easily attainable, state for me in ordinary life. Quarantine let me completely concentrate on my works. However, the background anxiety made me feel strained. The fragility of our world was felt more keenly. This feeling made me more vigorously work on my new series where a flower has got new meaning and became a symbol of human life fragility. The works I sent to this call were made during the isolation.
The tendencies of modern art, addressed to exposure of social illneses and people’s psychological problems, are very important. But postmodern irony, which is currently widely used by artists, in my opinion, is already losing its power and topicality.
Right now I continue to work on “Flower ladies” series and hope that at some point it become fully-fledged project. Also, I work in collaboration with Alexander Kosenkov, poet, on project “Visual Poetry”. It will consist of my graphics accompanied by his poems.”
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