Living in Legal is a major change for Russian artist Nataliya Bukhanova but she is finding ways to make a big name for herself here by being omnipresent.
In the last several months she has been featured in exhibits at Harcourt House, the Visual Arts Alberta Gallery, the Whyte Avenue Art Walk, the Carrot Café, the Heart of the City Festival and the St. Albert Painters' Guild show at St. Albert Place. She recently helped decorate the Russia pavilion at the Heritage Festival and she now has her own solo show at the Paint Spot's new location on the south side of Edmonton.
The 36-year-old has called Alberta her home for the last three years. She graduated from the fine arts program at the Yekaterinburg College of Design 10 years ago and has since put her heart and soul into a body of work that combines mythical and spiritual elements set somewhere in the universe.
“I lived in the big city all my life,” she said, talking about her hometown with a population of over one million. “Now it is quite different. It is a small town. Back in Russia I had two full-time jobs and I was busy all the time. It's exciting that this is my second solo exhibition in Canada.”
The good news for her is that her much quieter and quainter location affords her more opportunity to spend quality time with her watercolours. The results are pieces that have a decidedly Ural flair with a high degree of visual appeal. They are very colourful with striking images of earthly delights or celestial ethers and other majestic forces at work. She gives her works names like Gamajun, based on Russian mythology about the creation and death of the world. The name comes from a bird that sings the song of wisdom, remembering how the world was created and knowing what will happen after it ends. She explained the entire existence of the world is but a moment for him.
Others along the same theme are Year of the Monkey that could be considered half of a possible diptych with Year of the Tortoise. The first is designed to represent death and the latter is for life. It's not entirely abstract but it's a good idea to think about it in those terms.
“It is philosophical art about mythology or religion or my thoughts about philosophy,” she explained. They are dreams, full of childlike wonder. They're also worlds apart from most of the other art that you'll see around here.
Song of the Universe
Paintings by Nataliya Bukhanova<br />Runs until Aug. 31<br />Naess Gallery at the Paint Spot<br />10032 - 81 Ave. in Edmonton<br />Call 780-432-0240 or visit www.paintspot.ca for more information.
