Albert Painting

I was born and raised in the Russian Siberian wilderness in the small city where a Tsar exiled Dostoevsky. Winning a beauty contest at age 17 allowed me to escape "” first to Europe, later to the Middle East and finally to the United States, where I married, became a mother and a naturalized American citizen. Since graduating High School, I made a living simultaneously as a painter and fashion designer. My lifelong dream of obtaining a formal art education was fulfilled when I graduated magna cum laude from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2010, majoring in painting with a minor in fashion design. Many of my sexiest gowns were never seen in public, as they were hidden beneath the burkas worn by my clients in the United Arab Emirates. My paintings have been the featured décor in restaurants from Germany to Minneapolis, and more recently in art galleries in Savannah and Atlanta. I explore though portraiture the complex, often unconscious, correlation between the personality of nature and the nature of personality. Through my "˜Four Seasons' series of portraits of my daughter, I juxtaposed the four seasons to changing moods, natural elements to altered perceptions, cycles to character and colors to psyche. There is no separating ourselves from the natural order; our constantly evolving cyclical relationship with the environment confers inescapable common cause that transcends corporal existence. In my "˜Hiding in Plane Sight' collection of large face-only portraits (shown here), I added a more ambitious layer of psychological depth by simultaneously exploring internal conflicts within the viewed while the subject boldly confronts the viewer in unavoidable dialogue. Every body and every thing hides within a surface that conceals depth. At its core, portraiture is about the metamorphosis of the human form; the art of pealing away skin and cutting through bone fully sanctioned by the natural human propensity to hide within, seek out or peak inside private worlds. The role of the artist is to unveil the human being "” in all its many clever (dis)guises "” and, thereby, transform the viewer into a detective being detected. The more layers of coverings pulled away, the greater a mystery unfolds.