Today we’d like to introduce you to Salavat Fidai.
Salavat Fidai is an artist miniaturist. Born November 27, 1972 in a small village at the foot of the Ural Mountains in Russia. He lives in Miami and works in the genre of painting, miniature and sculpture. But his world renown gained by creating micro-sculptures from graphite pencil rods. Salavat Fidai was brought up in a family of teachers, who taught art at school. Since he was a child Salavat Fidai was surrounded by creative atmosphere, and from an early age he was interested in different types of art. His parents devoted much time to the artistic education of their son and encouraged his craving to draw.
Initially, however, he did not follow the footsteps of his parents. Salavat received his primary education at the Art School and decided stop learning the art. Salavat did not believe in the possibility of making a living by painting and so he decided to become a lawyer. In 1995 he graduated from a law school in Russia and started working as a lawyer in the field of civil law. Over 20 years he worked in various commercial companies on different positions, at his 40s reaching the peak of his office career – getting a leadership position in a prestigious company.
In December 2013, Salavat Fidai quit his top position in a large company in Ufa and went to “find himself” (that is how he explained his decision to his friends). For a year, he did not work and spent all his time searching for answers to the questions: who am I, what is my purpose? That year Salavat radically changed his lifestyle: he stopped watching TV, got engaged in spiritual practices, read a lot of literature on personal development and self-knowledge. He made an attempt to find himself in new fields of activity: marketing in social networks, commercial photography, and more.
At the end of 2014 Salavat decided to go back to his forgotten passion, once again he picked up a brush and tried himself as an artist. Between 2014 and 2015, he was experimenting with different techniques and materials. As a result, a new author’s concept appeared and a new look at familiar things was formed, which brought to life the unique miniature art. The first worldwide fame came to Salavat Fidai with miniature paintings done on the pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and grains of rice, as well as copies of van Gogh’s paintings on matchboxes.
At the end of 2014, Salavat discovered a new material – graphite pencil rods. Between November 2014 and February 2015, he created his first micro-sculptures on the pencil tips. Today, there are very few masters of this unique art form. This is due to extremely intense and time-consuming process. Graphite is a very fragile material and the sculptures are exceedingly small, measured in millimeters and even in microns. Graphite micro-sculptures often break while working with them. Carving one sculpture may take up to 12 hours and sometimes several days. While working Salavat uses a stereo microscope and a knife with replaceable blades. At first, he used Jumbo pencils with a rod diameter of 5 mm. Now the main material are regular pencils with 2 mm rod diameter. He also works with smaller diameters: 0.5 mm and 0.35 mm rods of mechanical pencils.
Salavat takes video of the process of creating sculptures and then shows them to the fans in the Internet. Some videos collected millions of views and became very popular in social networks. By the beginning of 2018, Salavat Fidai created more than 300 graphite macrosculptures. The world’s largest mass media talk about his macrosculptures across the continents. Today the number of publications about his works exceeds several hundred. Many of his works are now in galleries and private collections in the USA, Australia, Italy, the UAE, Germany, China and many other countries.
In early 2016, the photo book called “The Pencil book” was published. It contains the best works by Salavat Fidai of 2013-2014 and his autobiography. Fans have made a great contribution by raising funds for the publication of the book at the crowdfunding project Indiegogo.com. In 2016 and 2018, Instagram in the USA and in Russia published in their blogs a photo of Salavat Fidai’s macrosculptures. All the art works of Salavat Fidai you can be found in his Instagram account @salavat.fidai and personal website www.salavatfidai.com
Please tell us about your art.
I’m inspired by the art of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Wang Gogh. My art is a meditation for me. This is my destiny. Every new work is a challenge.
What do you think about conditions for artists today? Has life become easier or harder for artists in recent years? What can cities like ours do to encourage and help art and artists thrive?
Instagram and Facebook give a lot of opportunities for artists. If Van Gogh had an Instagram, he would have a different fate. I think Miami is a good city for an artist.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
https://www.instagram.com/salavat.fidai/
https://www.salavatfidai.com/
https://www.etsy.com/shop/salavatfidaiart
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.salavatfidai.com/
- Email: salavat.fidai@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/salavat.fidai/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/salavatfidaiart
- Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/salavatfidaiart
Image Credit:
salavatfidai.com
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