Natalia Pivkina

Om kunstneren

Text in english | Tekst på engelsk

I was born in Krasnoyarsk, a city in the heart of Siberia. Since childhood I was engaged in creativity. I was fascinated by absolutely everything, dancing, sewing, embroidering, drawing, athletics, I was an active child. When I was ten years old, I injured my backbone and had to spend several months in bed, and then for several more years had to avoid physical exercise. That allowed me to focus on drawing. I retrospect how I’ve been cleaning up the storeroom and found my mother’s oil paints (she mostly painted still life with flowers). I remember my first unsuccessful attempts to make a brush stroke.
Before I turned thirteen, I did not understand even the difference between watercolor and gouache.

After the school I wished to learn some pragmatic profession, and after certain hesitation over architecture and mechanical design decided to choose the latter. I could not imagine how many opportunities I am opening in my life.

After getting my bachelor degree, I committed to Erasmus Mundus Master’s program. With zero knowledge of English, French or Spanish, being 22 years old, for the first time in my life I flew by plane and visited another country. I lived in Lyon for two years and studied at INSA de Lyon and then for one year in Barcelona UPC. I learned to speak French and Spanish and got my MSc of Mechanical Engineer degree. During all that time I never stopped drawing for myself. I had to return to Russia, but I fell in love with Europe and promised to return.

In 2011 I moved to Saint Petersburg. For three years I worked as a mechanical engineer, designing flight simulators for helicopters and airplanes. In Saint Petersburg I met my future husband, together we traveled through Scandinavia, discovering Finland, Sweden and Norway for ourselves. These travels led us to decision to live here.

In 2014 my husband found a job and we moved to Oslo. I also tried to find a job, but there was almost no demand for mechanical engineers at that time. I’ve got a lot of free time and began to paint more, experimenting with various new techniques. My main subject is landscapes, made with acrylic paint and palette knife. The texture of the pictures is unique and spontaneous, hardly reproducible. I also admire oil and create realistic pictures of animals, people and still life.

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