When Passion Meets Mastery
Oksana Sulimova is an inspired professional artist and art instructor who has been painting since she was five years of age. At the top of her class, she attended and received her diploma from the Kaluga College of Culture with certification as an artist, art teacher and art business administrator. Oksana would subsequently go on to attend the prestigious Moscow State University in the mid-1990’s where she would hone her fine-art skills among some of the best and most dedicated students and instructors in the world. Oksana now lives in Bucks County Pennsylvania where she continues to pursue her passion for art both as an artist and as a fine-art instructor.
Oksana’s oil paintings and charcoal portraits possess both emotional depth and breadth. Her deeply felt approach to subjects as varied as land and cityscapes as well as country scenes and flowers of many varieties coupled with her attention to color and form that appear to resonate with a classic 19th Century European Impressionistic style have made her works popular amongst connoisseurs and collectors across two continents.
“I come from a family of artists. Both my parents were trained artists. I was raised by my mom and she has been painting for many years including commissioned works both original and masterwork reproductions as well as traditional iconographic paintings for the Eastern Orthodox Church, which requires specialized skills and can be rather challenging. There is a definite shared bond in our commitment to art, one inspired by the traditional European School, though I have my own unique interests and approaches to subjects. Nevertheless, my mom remains a big inspiration to me as a self-made woman and single parent. I often ask myself what she might say about one aspect or another as I’m working on a project as I’ve always valued her opinions and insights.”
Oksana’s paintings and charcoal drawings are part of public and private collections throughout Europe including Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kaluga City, Russia; Lille, France, Oldenburg and Bonn, Germany; and London, United Kingdom. In the United States her work is in private collections in New York City, New York; Philadelphia, Montgomery County and Bucks County, Pennsylvania as well as Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois, and Austin, Texas. Her work has been displayed at annual Exhibitions in New York City as well as at annual arts and crafts fairs such as the New Hope Arts and Crafts Festival.
Oksana’s Approach
“I am occasionally asked why I have included certain elements of life in my landscapes and cityscapes. The Russian Art School tends to promote the inclusion of ‘life’ within such works and I think this is true of my own work. I tend to place people, children and even their pets into my landscapes when I feel it’s appropriate to the intent of the work. Specifically, I will do it to express a personal experience of a place that ‘rings’ true, so that it is more authentic. If I am producing a remote, pristine landscape, obviously there won’t be something or someone represented there that doesn’t belong unless I am intentionally trying to make a statement be it serious or whimsical. However, the removal of elements from a work that might be expected such as people, pets, and/or wildlife is also a statement. The absence of a common element is as much a symbolic representation as the inclusion can be and it really depends upon the intent of the work. If I am painting a local park or region and people are intrinsically associated with the place, I will include them with a focus on what they are doing in their environment leaving the viewer to question what they are feeling and thinking. To me, this represents true life and can resonate with the viewer. It’s like people watching only now one may be watching the people and the watchers.”
“Ultimately my goal is to elicit an emotional response. While I may explore some deep psychological territory from time to time, I don’t appreciate work which is too jarring to the eye and leaves little to self-reflection or the imagination, at least not in my own art. I also love to experiment and have fun. I have several thematic painting and drawing series that I will never provide an explanation regarding what originally inspired them. It’s up to the viewer to find their connection with the work. This is true for my series ‘Moment in Rain’, ‘Outside looking in’, and ‘Love in Rain’ that should be considered together. So while there may be a story, I don’t feel that I necessarily need to relate it outside the work itself. Of course, many times an explanation of the work isn’t an issue at all, such as several of my paintings which include themes around cats. The work is simply an amusement, something that many people can readily relate to.”
“When I was younger, I had a number of odd jobs. My most unusual work experience was as a headstone portrait artist in Russia. I would work with several other artists, each of us working independently on our own projects, in a building that was on cemetery grounds that was poorly heated and eerily quiet at times. Nevertheless, I found this work to be very satisfying, it was challenging as the media that can be very unforgiving, but it really helped further my portrait skills.”
