Today we’d like to introduce you to Maria Savchenko.
Maria, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in Ukraine, a beautiful country with a very turbulent history. It was struck by war so many times in the past century that it felt almost impossible when yet another military conflict started in the east of Ukraine by Russia supported insurgents five years ago, flooding my home city Donetsk and making millions of people homeless and refugees, including my immediate family. But this came later…
When I was five years old, I cut the ribbon of the first exhibition where my paintings were displayed, but nobody in my family took it seriously, because I would pretty much cope with anything my education obsessed parents would throw at me. So, I went through many years of art school, which laid the foundation of my art career.
After getting my masters degree in German and English languages, I went on to work in communications at the United Nations, German cooperation agency GIZ and business associations. All those years, I was painting on behind the scenes, so to speak, always having that magic window for my spiritual retreats, doing residencies at art studios of talented Ukrainian artists, taking art too personally to commercialize it.
The tables have turned when an abrupt personal change rushed through my life shaking everything top to bottom. It helped me understand what should stay on top, and for me, it became very clear that it was art! Once this decision was made, I have completed my art studies at Central Saint Martins college of art London, learning more about contemporary painting and becoming a full-time artist.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Very far from that, my omelet is made of a lot of broken eggs! I wish I had done art full time much earlier. A long and winding road took me off the painting path for many years. Although, unlike many creatives, I didn’t hate my office career, quite, on the contrary, I was very grateful to the fact that it gave me freedom and independence of financial worries, gave me a chance to meet fantastic inspiring people, learn from them, and travel a lot. It was often on my business trips that I would discover the treasures of Albertina museum in Vienna, Dresden art gallery, museums of Berlin and Stockholm, where I would sneak out after work.
Down the road, I’ve accumulated a world of skills and experience that I find indispensable now. For instance, producing and presenting a TV show taught me how to connect with the viewer, getting proficient with a photo camera helped me feel and understand the composition and framing a lot better. My work in communications also made me a more structured creative, which is always a problem for artists, the “dreaded office hours” – submissions, conceptualizing and talking about their art, etc. Also, I needed time to mature as a person as well as an artist in order to plunge into full-time painter’s life. It is my firm belief that an artist needs to become genuinely interesting before trying to offer their interpretations to the world, without it an artist is just an empty shell and their art is lacking depth and content.
Please tell us about Maria Savchenko Fine Art – what should we know?
My focus is on painting abstract works and putting together surrealist collages, the common ground for both genres being transformation and shifting order. I identify my style as abstract expressionism and take great pride in following in the footsteps of Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko as well as surrealist painters like Joan Miro etc, and like them, I put on canvas my interpretation of what can stem from absolutely anything, music, smell, or a mere feeling. Among other things, I source my inspiration from poems, I’ve made quite a few paintings after poems of Federico Garcia Lorca and Charles Baudelaire. I was raised between opera house and ballet studio, so all kinds of art are mixed together.
I like to spend a lot of time with my paintings. Although, I don’t always have a clear outline from the start and I am guided by the colors and textures, and mood, for I do a lot of painting a la prima, there are cases when I spend days or weeks thinking over a concept of painting and bringing it to completion.
I am an artist who is also a collector, I love having paintings of other artists on my walls, especially in medium and genres that I am not keen on pursuing.
How do you define success?
A widespread concept of a successful artist is how much art he or she sells, and partially that’s true because we remember Van Gogh, right? Although there is nothing wrong with putting a price tag on your piece of art, I believe it is not and cannot be a starting point for creation. With a figure in mind, one is more susceptible to pigeonhole oneself in one style, e.g. one that is now all rage, or copy someone commercially successful, and go on making heavily stylized paintings of let’s say children with the specific shape of eyes, or color, etc.
In my understanding, a measure of success for the artist is, by all means, acknowledgment and a feeling that you can still do better and more. If you feel you are totally satisfied with what you do, it’s the beginning of the end. And although, I am planning to participate in Art Basel Miami events this year, this is not a pinnacle for me. My ultimate goal is to create unique pieces I am unmistakably recognized by as an artist, meaning a lot of hard work which is a constant ingredient of every genuine success story.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mariasavchenko.com/
- Email: contact@mariasavchenko.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariafineart/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/MariaSavArtist
- Other: https://www.quora.com/profile/Maria-Savchenko-2
Image Credit:
Maria Savchenko
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