Artist Statement

"I love color. I use complex palette, stong brush strokes- broad but precise to construct space and form. It allows me to capture and bring out the essence of the subject rather than its details. I aim to paint the only essential elements contributing to the work. There is inner truth, harmony, beauty in all things. Apparently simple everyday objects are visually complex. Need to capture and to share this beautiful complexity is my motivation to paint.

When I perceive new line or color I fall in love with it. I study this impression over and over to feel intricate relationships of the subjects. Their form and function, certain shapes, textures and colors, the waylight falls. That's the hardest part of all. Then it's easy- just to transfer the image on the canvas. And at last- the longest and intense part- to get it right. Compositions have their own logic that dictates necessary changes. My best works are like generators. They live by themselves. Every time I look at them they give me new feelings and ideas.

I have run away to be able to paint. Twice. Once from home at seventeen. I went to St. Petersburg to study fine art professionally. And again, when I turned into a successful artist in Russia in the late eighties. I became discontented with the art I was making. I realized the need to escape commercial pressure. I wanted to develop new ways to express myself. To attain new techniques and ideas. I came to America and studied at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts on graduate and postgraduate programs. I discovered Sutin - one of my two favorite painters. Van Gogh is the other. My palette became light and rich, brush strokes strong and exact. Perhaps the most important and still ongoing change is the works complexity."

Exhibitions

Luda Makarova

Ceramic Masks

December 4th – 26th, 2009

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Luda Makarova

Watercolors

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Selected Works