Artist Awareness Post 3/1/24

For this artist awareness post, I decided to focus on Natalia Baykalova, a contemporary artists that mainly makes landscapes. I chose this artist because I find interest in landscapes, and she was a particularly interesting creator of contemporary landscape pieces of artworks.

I find her methodology to be very cool and interesting because it utilizes more random and less precise paintbrush marks to achieve a surprisingly realistic result.

Energy of Snow 90х90 2019

In this particular work, I also find the very dynamic brushstrokes to show the movement of the figure to be very effective, using the more unpolished technique of obvious brushstroke to create visible movement. The mountains in the background have very obvious brushstrokes, but you can pretty easily picture the detailed mountain range through a quick glance or by squinting your eyes, since the shape and color are there.

While mimicking reality Natalia Baykalova paints to express the emotions of the scene, capturing the feeling rather than the exterior appearance. I think this a very cool approach, and much more appealing than less understandable more abstract forms of contemporary art.