“Non-finito” in finding individual artistic style

Paintings by Gulnara Sharaborova

Hello, my name is Gulnara. Since childhood, I wanted to paint. Several times in my life, I was going to change my profession but was not brave enough to make a controversial decision. Now, at the age of 55 after retirement, I am happy to realize my dream of becoming an artist.

The place of art in my life. At present, art occupies 100% of my time. My new friends – professional artists say that copying old masters is the shortest way to mastery. My favorite master is a brilliant Russian artist Nikolai Feshin (1881-1955). I started from copying his masterpieces. In a desire to “crack” Feshin’s code, I wrote several articles for a broader study of the life and work of the artist and introduced them to one of the Russian universities. These essays are devoted to such topics as “non-finito” in Feshin’s work, his talent in the role of professor of the art school in Kazan (Russia), psychological and social research to identify the list of typical features of genius people, based on the example of Feshin’s phenomenon.

Painting challenges. I would like to develop my unique personal style, which will be placed somewhere on the border between different styles. I wonder how other old masters came to their distinctive manners. Feshin’s paintings are a field for a great battle – clashes of different styles (realism, impressionism, expressionism, and modernity), which however were transformed by a great artist into a single harmonic system. I am curious to learn new ways, compare them, combine traditional with the avant-garde, enrich and deepen the list of my competencies and finally to obtain my recognizable style.

About the Old Masters Academy ™. The very name of the brand “Old Masters Academy” inspires hope that I will receive academic knowledge and develop my skills and crafts that will help me in creating masterpieces at the level of old masters. From free courses offered by the Academy of Old Masters, I felt that I had found what I was looking for: depth, ambition, integrity, while attention to detail.

What to learn in art. In addition to studying various techniques (hard skills) such as brushes, mediums, etc., I hope to develop my abilities (soft skills), in order to help the heroes of my paintings share with the audience their emotions (sadness, joy, fear, etc.). At present, I have to adhere to the abstract manner, because this way is more comfortable for newcomers like me. However, in the future, I want not to be afraid of details and write some parts of my paintings realistically, as Feshin did.

Become a winner. I am a reflexive learner. In case of victory in the contest, I will share my feelings, experience, and joy with my friends, audience and potential students of the Academy of Old Masters. Perhaps this will push them to make their controversial decisions earlier and start painting before the retirement age, as it happened to me.

Voting for me. I attach three pictures to participate in this contest. Two of them – portraits of Feshin Ei’s daughter, which I painted applying pointillism and impressionism manners. In the third picture, I placed in the foreground a dog (cocker spaniel), who brightened up the oldness of the Feshin’s last years of life in America. Since a favorite dog of Feshin seemed to be lonely after his death, I put the cocker spaniel in a new imaginary family of another Russian artist Valentin Bernadskiy.