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		BOLSHAKOVA Larisa

Biographical information: Born in Moscow, Larisa Bolshakova was educated at Moscow State University. After graduating, she began seriously to devote herself to drawing and painting. One of her favorite mediums is watercolor and her preferred subjects are cityscapes. She lives and works in Moscow and Vienna.
Collections where works are held: Artist’s paintings are in Marina Tsvetaeva Museum in Moscow, in private and corporate collections in Russia, Western Europe, USA and Japan.
Participation in exhibitions and auctions: 1998 - 2001. Moscow International Art Salon, Russia
1999. “All Colors”. Central House of Artists, Moscow, Russia
2000. One-man show “Moscow – St- Petersburg – Vienna”. Amerlinghaus, Vienna, Austria
2001. One-man show “Still-life. Fish and Bread”. Amerlinghaus, Vienna, Austria
2002. Gallery “Interart”, Vienna, Austria
2003. “Vienna? Vienna.” Gallery “Grinn”, Vienna, Austria
2003. “Pyramid”. Art Gallery of the Theater Museum, Moscow, Russia
2003. Russian-German House, Moscow, Russia
2003. Raiffeisenbank in Leonding, Austria
2004. One-man Show. Gallery “Air” London, Great Britain
2004. “Calligraphy”. Gallery “L”. Moscow
2004. Russian Cultural Institution, Vienna, Austria
2004. Christmas Exhibition. Gallery “Interart”, Vienna, Austria
2005. One-man show. Marina Tsvetaeva Museum. Moscow.
2005-2006. One-man show. Wintershall AG. Kassel, Germany
2006. “Earthly City, Heavenly City”, in memory of Russian poet and religious thinker Daniel Andreev. Gallery “L”, Moscow
2007. One-man show “Urban Landscape”. Literary Society of Verona, Italy
2007. One-man show. Gallery “Baumwollspinnerei”, Leipzig, Germany
2007. One-man show. VNG – Verbundnetz Gas AG, Leipzig, Germany
Autobiographical notes: I was raised amid ancient Russian literature and art. Ancient Russian paintings are characterized by the sense of style and purity of forms. These features are typical for the antique. I like the works of many Russian artists, both ancient and modern ones. For example, by studying the art of still life, I learned a lot from K. Petrov-Vodkin, who painted many marvelous still life works, and also conducted research on this genre, to be seen in his book “Euclid’s space” (1933). I am interested in eastern and western fine arts. I am fond of ancient Chinese landscape with its diffused perspective and specific compositional pattern, of Japanese engravings that depict everyday life of people. I like urban images, especially of New York, by such masters of American Impressionism as Child Hassam, Ernest Lawson, Colin Campbell Cooper, Edward Redfield and others. I reckon that an artist’s spiritual and individual experience greatly influences his works, since it helps forge his style and taste, his plastic language.
What the critics say: The freest expressive research in our times passes, in the course of its evolution, from the finished form to its presupposition. It is the outcome of a conviction rooted in the 1900s: the best meaning of existence is reached by investigating its structures rather than its events. Larisa Bolshakova, like few others, has attempted a further experience. The “inner way” is now joined by the “outer way”. She invites us in this way to discover fully, in the sphere making up the world, both the concavity of the unconscious and the convexity of the surface. The transition from the depth of non-determination to the harmony of implemented possibility takes place with that naturalness that suggests and indicates the necessity for the latter curvature. This commitment should not be viewed as a review faced by the avant-gardes but rather as yet another proposal towards a still unknown fact. Reality is catalogued by Larisa Bolshakova in one of the representations that most concerns us: the urban structure. Larisa’s ambition is to touch inner emotions by eliminating intermediates as far as possible. By taking the Home as a subject, Larisa Bolshakova takes an elementary appearance of the world as her model. Through this reduction, she manages to grasp that vital rhythm that characterizes existence better than so many selected discussions… In order to understand Larisa Bolshakova, we must meditate on her idea of the world, that with its colors she calls “mystery”… Reality for her is a blurred movement, a fluid body inside protection that can still be scratched. What is mysterious should not be seen as completely separate: some medium will reveal it to human sensitivity… Larisa Bolshakova is the assiduous architect of the face of mystery. The image of her internalized city suggests the possibility of other dilations and embraces our entire being and experience… Larisa Bolshakova’s “home” lives through fluctuations: she doesn’t give us any certainties but stimulates us towards ceaseless interrogation.
Flavio Ermini – philosopher, poet, critic

… Whatever enters Bolshakova’s visual field is not depicted with photographic precision bordering on indifference but through the devoted diligence of an artist inspired by infinite love for the urban environment in general and architecture in particular. The buildings – of different epochs and in different styles – the arches of the bridges, the outlines of river banks, the zigzags of roofs, the interwoven tracks and wires are all exceptionally animated in her works. The dark or bright windows of homes with sharply drawn or outlined fittings ensure in every painting a particular musical rhythm, a particular atmosphere, and especially become the living eyes of the city. This is how the artist reveals the city to us, like a living organism…
Olga Kostina – Art critic and editor-in-chief of Russian Fine Art magazine

… In the shows by Larisa Bolshakova a trivial comment such as “art brings people closer together” takes on an absolutely literal meaning. These artistic images truly have no need of translation and can arose the same emotions and desires among audiences in Moscow, New York, Paris or Sydney – yet Larisa’s urban landscapes, that she creates while touring the world, bring distant cities and countries closer together, allowing people who have never been there to image Kassel or London. The world is so large yet encompassed within the space of an exhibition hall, or even in a single painting… Larisa is a citizen of the world – born in Moscow, resident in Vienna. She travels a lot and perhaps precisely for this reason does not divide the world into “states” with sharply defined boundaries. The world is hers, wherever she goes she always finds something familiar in the facades, in street life…
Tatiana Basova – journalist
Bibliography: Moscow International Art Salon. Catalogue. 1998, 1999, 2001
Catalogue of the Exhibition “Pyramid”, organized by the International Art Group “Sintel Radunitsa”. 2003
Catalogue of the Exhibition “Calligraphy”, organized by the International Art Group “Sintel Radunitsa”. 2004
T.Muromskaja. “Moscow Watercolors by Larisa Bolshakova”. «Человек и карьера». 2002, № 7
«Новый Венский журнал». 2001, № 12 (illustrations)
«Новый Венский журнал». 2005, № 8 (article about the artist)
Catalogue of the show in Marina Tsvetaeva Museum, Moscow. 2005
Catalogue of the show in the Gallery “L”. 2006
Catalogue of the show in Verona. 2007
Catalogue of the show in the Gallery “Baumwollspinnerei” in Leipzig. 2007
The human landscape of Larisa Bolshakova. “Eni’s Way”, 2007, № 1

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