About Me
- The inspirational start of my academic study of art and the journey toward becoming an artist in my own right began at Central Saint Martins in London. After studying a foundation degree there I went on to gain a bachelor’s degree with honours in Interior Architecture from the University for the Creative Arts. After graduating I still wanted so much to learn more about the artistic processes and methods practiced by the artists I had been in awe of while perusing galleries in my native Saint Petersburg. So when Heatherley’s School of Fine Art in Chelsea offered me the opportunity to focus more specifically on my lifelong interest in portraiture and figurative painting I very gladly embraced it. As I worked toward gaining the Diploma in portraiture and figurative painting I was beginning to develop my own artistic practice. Yet I still yearned in particular to study classical fine art at a higher level. So after Heatherley’s I enrolled at the prestigious private arts atelier the Charles H Cecil Studios in Florence, Italy. The atelier teaches the more traditional and more rigorous style of drawing and painting from life. Great attention is paid to the sight-size method of painting and of using natural light as favoured by one of my favourite nineteenth century artists the American John Singer Sargent. This method of painting has its origins in the practice of Titian, Velazquez and Van Dyck. Developing the same methods as practiced by those greats of Italian sixteenth century Renaissance art, Spanish and Flemish Baroque seventeenth century art and nineteenth century greats like Sargent was an especial privilege. While living and studying in Florence I also developed an interest in plein air landscape painting. My love for observation and nature assists me in capturing specific moments that resemble the beauty of this world. In the nineteenth century these techniques were practiced widely and remain the lasting legacy of the greatestA European art academies. It is these types of art that inspired my own artistic aims. So it was with deep hope that in 2020 I applied to the institution that had fired my imagination all those years ago. Very happily I was accepted to study fine art for six years at the prestigious St Petersburg Academy of Arts. That it has for most of the last seventy years been devoted to and was for a time named after Ilya Repin, one of my favourite realist painters whose importance as an artist compares to that of Tolstoy as a writer, is something that inspires me very much.
- As a long term and devoted student of art I appreciate and enjoy art generally. My main interest lies in painting for it was this which formed the genesis of my artistic aspirations and that I fortunately decided to act upon in London at the beginning of my artistic journey. Throughout my artistic career I have been inspired by many revered and accomplished painters. My absolute favourites are Repin, Serov, Polenov, Korovin, Levitan, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Sargent and Sorolla. These painters represent my interest in paintings from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries. The accomplishments they reflect in Russian, Dutch, American and Spanish portraiture and landscape paintings mirror my own interests and strengths.
As a painter I believe that the main purpose of my art is not only to reflect the reality of the surroundings but to create art as a reflection of people’s characters and personalities, showing and multiplying the beauty of this world. I hope my own twenty first century fine art will delight and please people as much as I was inspired at the beginning of this journey toward creating my own artistic practice.
My aspiration is for my art to bring joy and a little artistic heaven into people's lives.
If you are interested in viewing, purchasing or commissioning any of my art, please contact me directly.
Copyright © 2023 Oxana Klip Fine Art - All Rights Reserved.