Exhibition by Irina Lotova "My garden, my color" Automatic translate

The Russian Academy of Arts presents an exhibition of works by the corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Arts Irina Lotova "My garden, my color". The exposition consisted of about forty paintings and graphic works of the last few years, performed in the technique of oil painting, gouache, tempera, pastel.

The author’s work is well known to the viewer. She is an active participant in Russian and international exhibitions, the owner of high professional awards, her works are presented in the collections of many Russian museums, foreign private collections. Irina Lotova’s works always find a wide audience response. Interior and landscape, intimate, intimate situation and extraverted enthusiasm for the outside world, its color and light… These two leitmotifs are fundamental for her work today.

“I want to convey in my works the beauty that I saw, that color and wonderful light in the landscape, those contrasts of form and color that I built in the interior. Perhaps, if it is possible to convey this to the viewer through painting, the viewer will feel the same that I feel - joy and peace from the contemplation of beauty, ”says the artist.

The immediacy of vision, the illusory ease of perception - “alla prima” in her works - is in fact the result of painstaking work. The artist makes many variations of color and composition for each painting. The exhibition "My Garden, My Color" is an attempt to show together both completed works and intermediate results of this search.

Irina Lotova was born in 1958 in Moscow, studied at art school No. 1, graduated from the Moscow State Academic Art School in memory of 1905. She organically entered the world of art. A big role in her creative destiny was played by her family: her parents - Moscow sculptors Rimma and Nikolai Lotovs, grandfather and grandmother. “My grandparents are painters from Saratov. Grandfather - Vladimir Kashkin - a pupil of Pyotr Utkin, a younger friend of Pavel Kuznetsov, ”recalls Irina. They conveyed to her not only the foundations of the special aesthetics of Russian Symbolism, but also that pictorial culture that went down in history together with the creative association "Blue Rose".

“From early childhood, I watched the albums of my grandfather’s favorite artists. Therefore, the greatest influence on me was made by Russian painting of the late 19th and early 20th centuries - Mikhail Vrubel, Viktor Borisov-Musatov, Pavel Kuznetsov. French painting - Cezanne, Gauguin, Derain, Bonnard and, especially, Matisse, Picasso. We need to learn from them, but I do not see a space for myself to search and develop the plastic ideas of these artists. Since my youth, I have read and now read memoirs, letters of artists, their thoughts about art, and I believe that an artist, studying the work of his ancestors, first of all, should be sincere, write what and how his soul asks, seek his solutions. All the art of my favorite artists, their experience is next to me, but I live in a different time and I am different. You just have to work, write, try to express your vision of the world, ”says the author.

One of the main sources of inspiration for Irina Lotova, the protagonist of many works, was her garden in Pereslavl-Zalessky. Creating it, capturing it in numerous works, she embodies her dream of a Garden as a model of an ideal universe, a paradise where nature appears in all its beauty, where extraordinary flowers bloom, where in the polyphony of colors, numerous nuances and shades you literally feel their aroma.

“My garden is 30 years old. I have books on gardening in my library. I chose plants for our land and climate. But above all, I chose plants by color and shape to paint them. I planted the Ginnal maple, because in the fall it is of different shades of red, delphinium - for color and height, hosts - for shape and ornament, irises and daylilies - for the number of flowers and flowering time. I planted spherical willow and conifers for their shapes. … Given the biological characteristics of plants - what to plant in the shade, what to plant in the sun, I always thought about how I would paint them and, above all, when planting a garden, I thought about painting. A garden that lives by the laws of nature gives me images of future paintings, ”the artist admits.

“Immersed” in the element of color and light, Irina Lotova remains a strict and strong-willed master, whose works are distinguished by a verified compositional structure, a balance of unexpected color combinations, volumes, motion vectors, and a thoughtful choice of material. For many years she has been working in parallel with pastels and oils, trying to find the right compositional solution. She used to write in gouache and tempera most often sketches for paintings, after sketches from nature and searches for compositional solutions in pencil. Pastels and gouache are not graphic techniques for her, she writes with these materials. Their possibilities are limited and the solutions of the works are more conditional, different than in oil painting. “My dear, closest to me material is oil, the richest in possibilities and the most difficult, complex. I can write to them for a long time, search, move, rewrite, having unlimited possibilities.Only oil can create a powerful, deep color. Its quality, sound is deeper and stronger than in other techniques. " Getting acquainted with the exposition, the viewer will be able to appreciate and feel the features and possibilities of various materials.

One of the most important moments in the development of an artist, according to Irina Lotova, is the presence in his life of a person who supports him. For her, this is mother, sculptor, ceramist Rimma Vladimirovna Lotova, who recently passed away. “The first, the best advisor, I treasured her opinion about my works so much! And another favorite model is the Lady of my garden. "

Creative search, the birth of an image, a work, the development of tradition, the formation of a creative individuality… All this is told in an interesting exhibition, offering the viewer a new meeting with the master.

The text was prepared on the basis of a recording of a conversation with Irina Lotova, art critic, academician of the Russian Academy of Arts Lyubov Evdokimova in September 2021.