Katya Medvedeva is an artist of naive painting. Biography, personal life, photo

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The work of the artist Katya Medvedeva leaves no one indifferent. She burst with her paintings into the smooth life of the Soviet period of stagnation and broke the usual ideas about artistic styles. Her direction was called "naive art", but the artist's works go beyond the genre. They are closer to the post-impressionism of Van Gogh.

At a time of many prohibitions for "non-systemic" creative people, an immature attitude towards her genre, personal disorder and periods of lack of money, she exhibits her works in Moscow, and instead of twenty days, the exhibition lasts two months. Works are bought and asked to write more. What was it? What is the phenomenon of this nugget?

Russian miracle

She didn't learn to draw. Never. And I'm very grateful for that. She herself admits that she would have been kicked out of any studio, from any school. Many confuse the style and character of the artist Katya Medvedeva. She is far from naive. This is a spiritually and professionally mature person with an inner coreand courageously defending his vision of art, his expression of the world on canvases.

The desire to tell other people about what she is going through, how she feels, what she breathes and who she prays for is her creative engine. Katya is well-read, her speech is figurative, she quotes the classics - both writers and painters. Only in one way does she differ from the rest - in the matter of using her God-given talent.

On this score, she has a favorite parable of the twelfth century about six hundred draftsmen imprisoned in prison. Only 300 continued to work. When they were provided with we alth and excellent conditions, only three people worked.

Katya Medvedeva's happiness

"A real artist is when he can't resist the desire to draw," says Katya. She compares the process of creating a picture with prayer. When a person prays, does he really think about how much he will be paid for prayer? It is the same when painting a canvas - thoughts should be occupied by God. There are a lot of angels in Katya's paintings, biblical scenes. But there are also many simple portraits, ballerinas, everyday scenes, cats. What does prayer have to do with it?

If we consider the creations of the artist as a repetition of what God created (because a person cannot create anything, he only copies nature), then all the work of this original artist becomes a reflection of divine creations.

Katya says about herself that she is the happiest artist. Each picture is a spiritual holiday. They have a lot of goodness. Even about difficult things - the tragedy in Beslan or post-war street children - her canvasesThey speak in a very light, clear language. September watermelons, a girl and two daggers above her head - either a halo or a halo.

The problem of family breakdown, abandoned children is expressed in a chicken that does not keep up with the rooster. "I'm your son, where are you running, dad?" - such an inscription in the picture ironically raises a difficult question. Without judging anyone, but inviting the viewer to think.

Inner rod

Katya leaves detractors. At first, she was very worried and cried that her work was considered a daub. But she always received encouragement from those who liked her work. And she deduced a pattern - you leave a bad person, right there a good one comes in his place. She perceives her persecution as proof that she has the spark of God. This realization brings joy and happiness. And next to a happy person, others become happy.

Katya thinks a lot about the purpose of the artist. What to say to envious people who call her unworthy of their paintings? She is not offended, only remembers how Mozart was considered unworthy of his own music. She just asks: “Who are the judges?”

"I'll paint your pictures with my eyes closed," another artist once remarked. Katya Medvedeva, recognizing her technique with a brush, sincerely did not understand how she could draw branches in a ditch that looked like worms. What for? What does she mean by this? And in this regard to the matter - to write about the good that helps to live - she takes an example from A. S. Pushkin. Even quoteshim in controversy:

Wandering my own way. Be everyone with your own.

At the beginning of her career, she refused to paint mugs according to the model, although the painting promised good money. “Having spent time on creativity, I will draw a lot of my own” was decisive in the choice between money and creativity.

Evaluation of creativity by specialists

Katya has been exhibiting since 1976. I started a few months after picking up a brush. And she does not buy this right, does not pay for the rent of the hall - no, she is invited, her works are sold out. And the professionals do it. When the paintings of the still unknown artist Ekaterina Medvedeva began to cross the borders of the USSR, they were surprised at the customs: “Why do you also have to pay money for this (the officer gave a different, more capacious word)?” He was told that this is what you call it, but for us it is brilliant.

In 1981 there was the first Moscow exhibition, in 1982 collectors showed eleven of her works to M. Chagall. He saw in the paintings the same love for color as he did. He appreciated her special handwriting and called her a Russian talent. In 1993, Katya's work was awarded a separate exhibition, and this happened in Paris. And the next year they were already hanging next to the canvases of Matisse and Chagall in Nice.

In the end, she was given a category 2A certificate. She received this document in 2013, and in it the professionals recognized her as a colleague.

Now Katya Medvedeva has already lost count of her exhibitions. Many works have found their place in private collections. At her homethere are more than two dozen invitations from foreign colleagues. She lives in Moscow, in a small room, and paints her canvases at home.

Artist biography

Katya Medvedeva was born into a family of peasants. It happened on January 10, 1937. Mother with her husband and sisters Katya, Polina and Nastya, then lived near Belgorod. After dispossession, they lost everything and fled to Golubino, where Katya's mother married her father. The family changed their place of residence, and visited the village of Shakhty. During the drought of 1946, it was decided to move to Azerbaijan. The father left the family and disappeared, soon the mother and sister Polina died. Nastya handed Katya over to the children's reception center and left.

Katya has a painting called “The Suffering of My Mother”. It depicts a village woman wearing a headscarf tied under her chin. It turns into a halo, and her figure is enveloped in several colored contours. On the back of the canvas is a brief history of dispossession, the murder of her husband, and her escape from the barn, into which she and her neighbor were thrown before the execution. The phrase “of course they beat me” alone speaks volumes.

Photos of Katya Medvedeva's paintings can be seen on her official website, where the artist's phone number is listed. She does not like to send messages over the Internet, preferring live communication. In fact, all her paintings are the best autobiography.

Left without relatives, little Katya felt defenseless. She has a piercing quatrain:

Like dandelions without fluff, They were picked up here and there.

Children in different orphanages

Distributed by years.

She studied well, graduated from a music school in the violin class. But it was necessary to think about a piece of bread, and Katya became a weaver in 1954 after the FZU. Since then, she has a great feel for fabrics. Can write on both velvet and tarpaulin. He makes a panel, attaches the fabric to the canvas like a character's dress, decorates it with jewelry. Six years of work at the loom was not in vain.

Private life and love

At the end of 1957, Katya got married, and in 1961, a daughter, Irochka, was born. The artist admits that she does not know what it is - a happy marriage. She thinks she's unlucky. He explains this state of affairs with his difficult life. The fact that from the age of sixteen you have to pay for everything. And she pays for everything. Katya does not like to depend on anyone. She has many paintings with the name "Freedom". How then to live? “Everything must be done honestly, with love,” the artist is sure.

Ekaterina Medvedeva's paintings tell more about her than she does. This is "Love Overboard" - a picture in which a couple is embracing. These are swans swooping down, a rooster running away from a hen and chicks.

She talks a lot about love. Gives advice, apart from teaching others. “My advice is practical, psychological,” she explains. Here are just a few of her sayings:

• No one should be condemned, even degraded people. We don't know everything about a person.
• Blessed are the persecuted. And I'm persecuted, only glad about it.
• Evil people take away their last joy from evil.
• The kinder the person, the closer to the truth, that is, to God.
• Don't be warm, indifferent. Betterbe hot or cold. Through the silence of the indifferent, crimes are committed.
• You can't pay off God.

She attracts kind people and is incomprehensible to the mercenary. Helps everyone who asks for help. That's why I didn't save any money.

She's different

You can discuss “grandmother with a palette” as much as you like, but who could turn life around at the age of 39 and stubbornly go to the intended goal under the whistle and cackle of ill-wishers? What she had to endure, only relatives know. She once said to herself that she was always driven out and finally kicked out into art. She did not become embittered, only she got used to not taking anything for nothing. Although she is ready to give the last.

Katya Medvedeva's paintings are the result of her character. Consciously chosen service to people - to bring good with the help of canvases. Have the courage to be different from others, endure sidelong glances. And at the same time be open to conversation, able to tell about yourself what others would prefer to hide. This is from the purity of the soul.

Conclusion

She's still with us. She is 82 years old and still paints. There is an opportunity to talk to her on the phone, buy her painting, visit her in a Moscow little room. Paintings by Katya Medvedeva are already of great value in the eyes of foreign collectors. Many are sold for 15-60 thousand dollars. She herself does not see this money and warns about dishonest people, naming names. While there is still time, support her, go to an exhibition or write a letter. She needs it.