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| Svetlana
Valueva...
“My heroes are women. Some were born from my imagination; others are real persons. Every new face, so unique and so unrepeatable, originates in my imagination and then finds its way to the canvas”. Svetlana was born in Moscow on the 24th of October 1966 and remembers drawing and painting as a toddler. Dated by her mother: a painting of a bird, a dog-like animal, and a queen confirms Svetlana’s age as 18 months. Her father, an artist, recognizing her talent became her first and most important teacher, encouraging her to paint alongside him in his studio. At 5 Svetlana began writing poems and stories expressing the feelings of the characters she drew. This treasured childhood art is part of her parents’ “private collection”. Thirteen years of state structured curriculum taught by both the academic school and institute established Svetlana’s art and drawing skills in “social realism”. Accepted at art school at age 6, Svetlana began formal training, two years later taking part in local, countrywide and international juried exhibitions. At 8 she entered a Cuban International exhibition, receiving a gold medal and 10 lbs. of Cuban sugar. In 1975 at 9, she received the Gran Prix at the annual International exhibition in Delhi, India. This juried exhibition of children’s paintings, established in 1952, grew to 150,000 children from 35 countries exhibiting work in 1975. In 1977 Svetlana received 3rd place, and again in 1979 she won the gold (Gran Prix) at this prestigious event. 1977 was a memorable year. A documentary about outstanding achievers in art, featuring Svetlana, was shown in movie theaters across Russia. The same year she was highlighted on the front page of a popular monthly magazine “Soviet Union”. Few realize achieving this fame in their lifetime, much less as a youngster. In the Seventies, the only style permitted for Soviet artists remained social realism. The first time Svetlana opened art books (given to her secretly by a friend) with images by Klimt, Alfons Mucha, Sargent, and Alma-Tadema she was stunned. She realized that her passion lay with those artists, and not with the “acceptable” realism. Svetlana immediately began painting a required set of art for school, and allowed her true style to emerge in works painted at home. Her father had given her his studio, and she lived and worked there. Soon a steady stream of people interested in new emerging talent rather than “official” art flocked to visit the studio. Before graduation she began to sell her “hidden” work to dealers from Belgium, France and Poland. She became so popular that the Academy faculty had no choice but to award her a summer’s trip to study in Europe. Svetlana had her first solo show in a prestigious Moscow gallery in 1993. Influenced by photographs left by her great grandmother, a ballerina at the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet Theater, and by her great grandfather, an officer in the czar’s army, the twelve paintings generated immediate interest. A Japanese publisher approached her concerning the production of the collection, purchasing all the exhibited paintings and requesting more. 1995 brought a commission by The Bolshoi Theater for a ballet collection. Invited to rehearsals by the art director of the company, Svetlana’s resultant fifteen-painting series is on permanent display in the Bolshoi foyer, and was used for 2 years as the opening backdrop for a weekly TV ballet program called “Entrance 15”. Nostalgia for the elevated, magnificent “silver age” of Russia has drawn her to the past, a period known in the West as Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, or Liberty. This is where the characters of Svetlana’s paintings are destined to dwell.
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