Sofiia Bortnikova

Ukraine •

Artist (Painting) •

Born unknown date •

"You should pay less mind to fairy tales, or that's all you'll become." When he leaves, I think about whether that would be awful, or beautiful. Could it really be such a bad thing, to become a story?

I knew that I will be an artist from an early age. Apart from that short period when I wanted to become a genetic engineer and breed magical beasts, I've never changed my mind.

But the first turning point on my creative path was the victory in the regional drawing competition. As a reward, I was sent to the most famous children's camp “Artek”. I was so happy and then for the first time I realized how much you can achieve doing what you love.

The next starting point was admission to the Art school. I was going to enter the faculty of painting, but fate decided otherwise and I ended up at the faculty of ceramics. It's not surprising, you know, in the exams everyone painted with such natural colors: browns, grays, so complex and airy. Whereas in my paintings everything was naive bright: the grass is green, the sky is blue, the river... is also blue. The horse from the composition was smiling happily at the audience, as well as a seagull from the still life painting, which certainly was not the idea of the exam. But they took me to this school. And four years after, I graduated with honors, as one of the top 5 graduates. The school gave me a basic knowledge of painting and drawing, shaping my creative abilities. There were a lot of rules and restrictions in using colors and techniques. But it was necessary to teach us basic academic principles. The outlet for my creativity were ceramics. All this ornaments and decorative stylizations still resonate in my works.

After school, I entered the National Academy of Fine arts and Architecture at the Faculty of Graphic Design. My new painting teacher said, that I can draw as I want and use any colors and materials. I was shocked and for a long time couldn’t give myself freedom in painting again. But when it came to the realization, that no one here controls you like at school, I brought pink oil pastels even to drawing classes. And not only pink, my box consisted of 48 colors, because drawing with a gray pencil was an unbearable torture for me. Oh, my poor drawing teacher... One day he came up to me and my friend (we were drawing with colored pastels on colored tinted paper), chose some crayons from the box and asked: "Can you two try to use these colors?"– Black, gray and a couple shades of sepia were laying on his palm. "Oh, we didn't know they were colors!" exclaimed my friend. He never tried again...

But most of all, my artworks were influenced by the studying of art history. Especially ancient iconography. I was literally fascinated by the smoothness of lines and silhouettes, the simplicity and expressiveness of the compositions and the absolutely extraordinary colors combined with gold and silver leaf. Or maybe it's more about energy, because for me it was always paramount to convey emotion through the painting.

Exhibitions | Festivals

Kurazh festival, Kyiv, June 2021

Spalakh Festival, Kyiv, July 2021

Artist Value, Biography, Artist's studio:

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