Natalya Savinova. Ceramics (From 'Petersburg Ceramists' series)

The personal exhibition of Natalya Savinova showcases works, which has already became classic, from the State Russian Museum collection, as well as those created recently, which belong to the author and have never been shown to public. Natalya Savinova is one of the leading representatives of St. Petersburg ceramics school of the 1970s. Her works are quite chamber ones, full of harmonious lyricism. They depict relationship between their author and the world, outward things. The exhibition is another show of the series devoted to the modern national art. Since 1967, when she was a third year student at the Ceramics faculty of V.I.Mukhina School of Art and Industry, Natalya Savinova has participated in most exhibitions which have taken place in Leningrad and the USSR, as well as those in Italy, France, Germany, Hungary, Chili, and Poland. Since 1973 Savinova has been a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR-Russia. She has been awarded with a diploma, and in 2000 was awarded with the Silver Medal of the Russian Academy of Arts. Natalya Savinova is constantly experimenting with materials and often uses various glazes, enamels, salts, and lustres at the same time. This impart images with peculiar colouring - from deep yellow tones to practically transparent aerial. Deliberately rough ceramics, often imitating texture of wood or stone, coupled with fine images, both paintings and graphics, make the artist's works unique and original; while artificial illumination, which highlights certain elements, brings chamber and intimate features. Recently, illumination is accompanied with mirrors and beaming metal, which create seeming duality of reflection, the beyond-the-mirror world. No less various are the subjects of Natalya Savinova's works. She turns to reminiscences about her family, travels, and close friends in her early work s (such as Thunderstorm service and Good Summer in Kazantip composition). As the artist puts it: "I want to isolate myself in small stage room which I had first felt long ago, back in my childhood". Another, no less important theme, which appears later, is an image of angel (White Nights composition, 1989-1991). Sad and joyful, happy and melancholic golden-hair angels created by Savinova do not resemble of the canonical image of dispassionate warrior of light. They are " humanized", they feel and share viewers' emotions. At last, one more significant symbol in Natalya Savinova's latest oeuvre is watch (Christmas composition, 1999; Rest vase, 2000). Watch is not a new topic in art, but it is Savinova who has succeeded in creating works where watches are an element which both emphasizes that what is happening is momentary and calls to value these delicate fleeting moments. The author herself says that the red pulsating second hand depicted in her works creates the impression of pulse. The artist's works can be found in collections of the State Russian Museum, the State Museum of Ceramics Kuskovo, the All-Russian Museum of Applied Arts, the State Museum of the History of St Petersburg, and others; as well as in private collections in Italy, France, Germany, the USA, Denmark, and Poland.