Sasha Sokolova Artist

Give us a little background about yourself. What inspired you to become an artist?

I’ve been painting as long as I can remember. Grandpa started teaching me when I was 4. He was a State Artist of the Soviet Union with a very strict art education at that time in Saint Petersburg. More serious practice started when I was 8 or 9 when I was accepted in a renowned watercolour school. I spent 8 years there studying watercolour, the history of art, enamel and etching techniques. From the age of 15 my granddad started to teach me more complicated techniques in oil painting and then I discovered a different world. From my first brush strokes I knew I found my media (I still like watercolour, but I just think of them as two completely different things). Oil painting gave me more freedom, and I found new opportunities in painting. I think the media you work with should reflect your vision of the world and it was exactly how I saw it – bright, vibrant, and dense. Later, I was in university and being creative and interested in many things tried things like costume design for cinema, jewellery. I was still looking where to stop for making a career. But painting was something constant that I was doing in the background even when trying other things. The career of an artist was a completely unknown area for me and the process of developing is very slow. But I couldn’t not to paint so I took the risk.
What inspired you to create “Life Still” and “Splash” collections?
Life Still

I produced this series over 2020 while mostly in lockdown due to the Coronavirus. I am used to working alone in my studio, so quarantine away from people has not greatly changed my lifestyle, and the isolation itself did not put me out of my comfort zone.  I am an inveterate introvert and I do not miss society.  But what pained me the most is the impossibility of communicating with nature.  Nature calms me and helps me to be in harmony with myself. Trapped in 4 walls, especially in a big city, a person loses their roots. Literally.  In those months through my works, I tried to restore this connection.  Staying in the apartment, I turned to plants and specimens I have brought from other countries: eucalyptus, dried banksia, palm branches, etc.   Without alternatives for models, it made me turn to myself, to look inside myself and I integrate these plants into the portraits to supplement what I feel I am missing. This is a very personal series about my warm attitude to nature at a time when we all crave it. 
Splash
My objective here is to create modern images using the heritage of traditional techniques, combining realism and simple, almost abstract forms. 
You know, we have many grey and dark days during the year in Moscow, winters can be long and hard, so summer is a special time you make the most of. It always feels too short! I wanted to preserve these memories and this way I can add colour to people’s lives all year round. I chose blocks of vibrant colours with energy to really stand out, as well as a kind of transparent/translucent bikinis. The scene is charged, the energy goes through you. It’s like the girls are so into the joy they are experiencing, that they merge with the environment. I believe colours are a very strong tool as you can affect people’s mood, so I tried to influence by colour without adding too many details to the background. To say more without saying a lot by using simple effects like gradient and straight lines, sometimes a simplified water texture. Creating mood with colours – summer, joy, fun.

How long does it take for you to create your work?

It depends on the size and complexity of the painting, but normally I am a fast painter, although now my canvas sizes get bigger and bigger these days and also they are very detailed so I spend a lot of time on them.

What are you working on next? 

I try to catch my inspiration, so I often find myself painting completely different subjects in completely different styles. For example, recently I came back from big trip to Sri Lanka and I was inspired by nature there and did tropical flowers series in a very decorative style, but at the same time I am completing a series of portraits of people on the beaches in south of Russia called "Sun Gods". Both are interesting for me, so I never get bored switching the painting on my easel.