Exhibition of artistic textiles by Natalia Muradova "Matter. Earthly and heavenly"

The Russian Academy of Arts presents an exhibition of works by the recognized master of textiles, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation and Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts Natalya Vladimirovna Muradova “Matter. Earthly and heavenly. The author’s artistic palette of techniques is limitless - classical weaving, painting, embroidery, volumetric sewing, printing on canvas, tapestry imitation; the range of materials is also diverse - shreds of fabrics, lace, glass beads, foil, fragments of weaving. The texts carry a great semantic load - quotes from the favorite works of the author’s poets, organically included in the flesh of the material, as well as real objects used as signs of memory, symbols of events.

Having gone through different periods in search and experimentation in the general stylistic flow of art, Muradova showed us her individual style as an artistic phenomenon. This is a style with its original ideas and decorative system of images, with a special poetic and philosophical worldview, with a fantasy technical palette of techniques - from textile matter in all the beauty of its pictorial and textural qualities to the use of author’s photography. Significant works speak of this: “You can live in an invented world” (1999), “The book will not die. The novel will be read. (2007), Carnival in Venice, Horror and Delight of the Great City (2010), Fragile Monument to the Moment (2014), Temple of the Ascension (2016), Botticelli Variations (2017). In the artist’s large-scale works of 2019-2022 "Earth - Sacred Mountain", "Gift of Heaven - Holy Water", "Heaven", “Air” reads the master’s reflections on the harmony of the universe and its constituent elements. "Russian Curtain", "Flying Petals" introduce into the atmosphere of beauty and admiration, associations, favorite images. In fact, each work is a picturesque textile canvas, a picture, as a rule, of impressive size (up to several meters) with a complex figurative and semantic structure.

The decorative gift of the artist is revealed in her watercolors, sketches on cardboard, which are works of art in themselves. Bouquets and branches of lilacs, roses and chrysanthemums are unique - favorite motifs, in the image of which nature is animated, its living presence.

Muradova’s work is well known in the cultural space of Russia and abroad. Natalya Vladimirovna was born on October 10, 1946 in Lodz (Poland). In 1971 she graduated from the Moscow Textile Institute. She began her work in the 1960s, when art was faced with the task of creating an emotionally imaginative environment in the interiors of large public buildings.

In the early 1970s, she turned to hand-painted fabrics. During her work in the system of Combines of the Moscow Union of Artists, she created dozens of theater curtains, tapestries and three-dimensional compositions for the interiors of public buildings, hundreds of drawings for artistic production. The movement of creative thought went from planar painting to its plastic transformation into voluminous textile panels.

Since 1986, a new period in terms of significance and scale begins, when, together with architects and glass artists T. Sazhin and L. Fomina, N. Muradova participates in the design of the spatial environment of such large and socially significant buildings as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Tretyakov Gallery, for which, during its reconstruction, she created the tapestries “Three centuries of Russian culture”, “Park. XVIII century”, “Noble Nest. 19th century”, “Poet’s window. XX century.

In 1995, Natalya Vladimirovna took part in a project of grandiose significance and scope for decorating the residence of the President of Russia in the Moscow Kremlin. For the Security Council Hall, she created a unique tapestry "Coat of Arms" in the technique of classical weaving with gold embroidery, and a tapestry "Shine of Moscow" (40 sq. m.), which was made at the famous historical manufactory in Aubusson (France). Sketches and cardboards are stored in the museum of the factory along with drawings by famous artists - A. Watteau, F. Boucher, J. Lurs.

In 1999, work began on the decoration of the new building of the Supreme Court of Russia, which was successfully completed in 2007. The amount of work done is truly enormous. For different rooms she created a number of large-scale works - textile panels, tapestries, paintings using gold embroidery to decorate the stage of the assembly hall with an area of 150 square meters. m. Wall and ceiling paintings became the decorative dominant of the library space. The entire wall is decorated with a unique tapestry "Time".

Muradova’s individual style has been fully revealed in dozens of unique works created by her over the past twenty years and presented in the collections of leading Russian museums, the Arts and Design Museum in New York, and private collections. Love for the word, possession of it was revealed in the author’s autobiographical books "Petals" (2016). “Patches of Torn Time and Picturesque Patches of Feelings” (2021), in which, with the author’s characteristic temperament, the integrity of the “artistry” of her nature is revealed so sparklingly, brightly and with confessional frankness in various forms of its manifestation.

The noticeable presence of the author in the context of the contemporary artistic process is manifested in the constant participation in domestic and international exhibitions, major creative events, such as the Russian Triennial of Contemporary Tapestry in Tsaritsyno, the International Textile Triennial in Lodz. Exhibitions of recent years, held at a variety of exhibition venues - in museums, galleries, theaters, fully revealed the creative guidelines, when the realities of the experienced, seen, move to the level of pure beauty and harmony.

“Happiness is to be able and able, and to be recognized, invited… A wonderful feeling of being in demand and support, the truth of what is happening,” Natalya Vladimirovna wrote in one book about her work. The viewer sees, feels and shares the author’s desire to communicate on a note of emotional excitement.

The text was prepared on the basis of an article by Doctor of Arts, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts L. V. Kazakova