Lana Svirezheva

Deciding to be an artist at the age of four while looking up at Sodoma's St. Sebastian during my first visit to the Uffizzi Gallery, I have since pursued this path by working on stylistically experimental paintings, portrait and illustration commissions, as well as a rigorous sketchbook practice. 

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In line with my classical painting education at the Florence Academy of Art and my Masters by Research in Interdisciplinary Creative Practices, it is important to me to always combine both craft and concept in my art. 

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When working from live models, spending hours together to document what it feels like to be alive, then and there, is a vital part of the artwork. It feels quite radical, yet peaceful, to be in each other's presence for so long, with all pretenses dropped due to the durational aspect of painting from life.

On the other hand, working from memory allows for a more ponderous process, wherein, with far from photographic recollections, I draw my way to figures I saw only briefly and sometimes even long ago, by focusing on highly individual, expressive gestures as starting points: A homeless woman massaging her foot, a boy’s double chin and toothy grin, a whippet’s slender head slipping out of its collar.​​