Featured Artist Tatiana Roulin

Artsy Shark is pleased to present the portfolio of featured artist Tatiana Roulin. Enjoy her work, and visit her website for more from this very talented painter.

 

 

My interest in art manifested itself very early. My parents had a large collection of books about art. Those books opened a door for me into a world of art and history. Starting from the Flemish paintings with Jan van Eyck and Robert Campin, then going to Dutch Golden Age paintings with Johan Vermeer, then admiring Renaissance masters, I traveled back in time.

 

 

In 2001, after many years of working as a graphic designer in Moscow, I moved to the US. That’s when I made a decision to start my full time career as an artist. Teaching art in the local community and painting is what I still do these days.

 

 

Being a classically trained artist with many hours of studying, I find that painting en plein air and from real life helps me in my own work. After my formal education, I found myself drawn to the paintings created in “Chiaroscuro Style” with distinctive contrast between dark and light, and “Impressionistic Style” with a fresh and intense color palette.

 

 

This influenced my current style. Color and interaction between light and dark are two major things I try to capture in my own work on any subject. Even though I currently work more in a contemporary style using a vivid color palette, I’m still looking for ways to capture the light and shadow and express color language.

 

 

My current body of paintings consists of images of everyday objects and things that inspire me, forming mini series of work from “Red Hat Ladies” and “Cat” series to “Atmospheric Landscapes” and “Vibrant Still Lifes”. As a representational painter, I’m trying to capture the momentum and depict the physical appearance of reality with my own personal style, expressed through the harmony of design, color and light.

 

 

After years of working with many different mediums I found that oil, acrylic and pastel are mediums I’d like to stay with, so now I mainly work with those three. I love trying new techniques, and experiment a lot because without this “trial and error” it’s impossible to grow and improve.

 

 

Still life was always  one of  my favorite subjects. I find it strange that now in our contemporary world still life is often described and associated with the “kitchen art” as if this is something that is intended to be in the kitchen area only. Meanwhile still life paintings trace their roots back to Ancient Egypt, where it was believed that food objects and other items depicted in tombs would become real and available for use by the deceased in the afterlife.

 

 

Whenever I paint a still life, I try to make people see the ordinary objects in a new perspective, reminding that beauty is all around. People find that my still life paintings “can evoke feelings of calm happiness,” “light up the room,” and “enable us to stop and appreciate a view we may see everyday.” Quite often it’s been noted that my paintings speak “in their brilliance of color, composition or the feeling of space that is more, much more, than just a picture.”

 

 

I can tell that there is nothing more exciting than to bring joy to people and brighten up their every day life because like Seneca said: “Res severa est verum gaudium,” meaning “True joy is a serious thing.” If my paintings are making somebody’s life just a little brighter and remind them that the biggest wonder is the world around us, I would say that my work was not for naught.

 

 

Tatiana Roulin would like to invite you to connect with her on Facebook and subscribe to her blog.