Diana Lavrukhina — Contemporary Art Curator Magazine

Apr 11

Apr 11 Diana Lavrukhina

Biography

Diana Lavrukhina names herself 'Social Artist' as her paintings and stories depict social aspects of our life. She is practising a style that she calls 'Sketchism' which is based on the joy of melody of line and shape. Sketchy softened silhouettes, explicitly limited colour palette, clear shapes and endless positive energy - it is all there in Diana's paintings.

What first prompted you to think of becoming an artist?

Since I was a little child I always had a feeling of being an artist. I am extremely visual - any book story, any music abstract always turns in my mind into visual narration. Moreover, I am obsessed with colours combinations. I wouldn’t leave home without making sure that I like the combination of colours of my clothes and it correlates with my today’s mood. My artistic journey started from music. I was lucky to grow in a family where playing musical instrument was a must despite it was still considered to be just a hobby. So, since being five years old I became a piano player. Studying it for 8 years developed the sense of harmony and also softened my hands, which is very important when you work on oil on canvas painting or doing pencil drawing. Final turning point in my life to take a decision to become a visual artist happened 10 years ago. Before it I just followed my family’s agenda, where you have to build a career, become a top manager and it was just impossible to tell parents or grandparents ‘I am going to be a full time artist’, nobody would listen to it, nobody would even hear it. Full time artist considered to be someone, who is practicing art for pleasure and has no real goals in life. For family consisting of CEOs, accountants, state prosecutors, lawyers, engineering top managers there were no way to admit an artist could be a life destiny too. Luckily or not so, but in April 2011 I was hospitalised with severe complications caused by flu. For two weeks me and doctors were fighting for my life. During that hospital stay I understood one very important thing - we should live the life to make dreams come true otherwise our life is useless. To be a full time visual artist was always my dream, but I have postponed it all the time because of the family values. At the point when I understood how fragile could be a human’s existence the only way for me to go forward was to start happy creative life. Two years later I was admitted to Repin Arts Academy evening education for Classical Drawing. Relatives still didn’t get the point. And even a year after starting the artistic education my mother told me during the call where I announced my successful promotion to the second year of studies: ‘at least in the worst years you would be able to do caricature drawings of people passing by Nevsky Avenue to earn your loaf of bread’. Sceptiques gone only a year after, when mother saw the drawings of plaster heads: ‘they look too alive...’ Nowadays, if she is visiting my studio, she usually takes a chair and sits next to an ongoing work for many hours.

What kind of an artist do you ultimately see yourself?

I like to do research about basic values of people. My art sometimes just depicting results of such reflections, sometimes questioning it. It might be a beautiful and cosy landscape which awakes your desire to belong to it, or it could be a character with it’s own story. Most important for me is to make spectator feel the painting or think about its meaning. This is the ultimate goal of my art.

What are you hoping to communicate to the viewer through your work?

We all live surrounded by endless stereotypes and habits. By my art I try to communicate to people what has the real value and what has nothing in it. Of course it would always be affected by my perception and life experience, but I always try to consider what is valuable and important for as many people as possible. We all have many things in common despite the variety of cultural backgrounds.

Can you explain the process of creating your work?

Any of my works always started from the question that emerges in my mind. It could be: ‘what makes this person to be unique?’; ‘how to express this particular beauty of the observed nature?’, etc. Then I may spend days, weeks and even months thinking about the size of the painting, textures and shapes, colours and shadows. Every time I take canvas in my hands to start applying oil paints a painting is already done in my mind. Usually, most of my artistic process is focused on creating the visual concept. And when I stop questioning it a painting is implemented to reality almost in one go. If we talk about technics, I learn a lot from artists of the past: light and shadow from Duerer, colours from impressionists and post-impressionists, silhouettes - Rodin and Shagal, constant innovations - Leonardo da Vinci. And, yet, I work in my own way. I call it ‘sketchism’ because it inherits main rule of a sketch - it should be not much drawn, but each line or shape should have its full weight. And when it is joined with limited amount of explicit colours it works as quite expressive approach, which I really like.

What is your favourite part of the creative process?

My favourite part of the creative process is the application of paint to canvas. It’s a time when I am connecting my vision that sits in mind with the material - canvas and oil paints and with every move I go I watch the dream turning into reality. The more I paint the more I am satisfied to see that imaginary concept proves itself.

Can you give us an insight into current projects and inspiration, or what we can look forward to from you in the near future?

This year I have picked up a particular topic to go with the research about and as a result to make visual interpretations - I call it ‘Tenderness’. The first painting ‘Forever Young’ is almost done. The set of other works filled with the similar colour pallet and types of the heroes is still yet to come. Moreover, like many other artists now I am working on the first set of NFTs. For me this form of art has endless source of inspiration, as I am not only creating visual narration, but also writing music for the first time in my life.

Website https://www.dianalartdesign.com

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dianalartdesign