Ambassador
Sasha Sokolova is an artist who lives and works between Moscow and Barcelona. She creates realistic paintings using a range of traditional oil and water colour techniques.
Her works are in private collections around the world, including Australia, Canada, United States, Great Britain, throughout Europe and Russia.
“When describing my work, I usually say it’s between realism and abstract. I often hear that people describe my style as modern realism. I think that might be true because despite the fact that my oil technique is quite classical, I always try to find modern, more unusual ways in my paintings, either in the theme or composition. Sometimes people think I paint in hyperrealism but I am far from just copying pictures. I try to put more philosophy into the painting.”
Born in Moscow in 1990 into a family of artists, Sasha Sokolova was accepted into the Sergey Andriyaki School of Watercolour and Fine Arts in Moscow aged nine and won scholarships from the V. Spivakov fund and Young Talents Fund. In 2005, she graduated with honours and in 2015 completed a Master of Fine Arts at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography. After graduation she was selected as one of the artists to create the first fully painted feature film "Loving Vincent" and the only one from Russia.
“I was born into a creative family and knew from the start that I would become an artist. My grandfather was a professional painter trained in the classical Soviet system and he taught me drawing and painting from the time I could hold a brush. We used to go out together into the field and I liked to explore nature using my pencils and paints. He was a strict teacher which at the time I didn’t like but I appreciate that now as the discipline was an important balance to my artistic nature. At the same time, I was studying music so I was brought up to understand harmony and to love art.”
Sasha’s main inspiration is travelling. The excitement of new landscapes, cities, and cultures have inspired her to capture her feelings from these travels, especially the colours of Southern Europe, and the rhythm of daily life.
Besides plein air water colour paintings of landscapes and cities, Sasha mainly focuses on traditional oil paintings on canvas. Another big source of inspiration for her is people. Aside from the challenge of anatomy, she tries to bring out the personality and emotions of the person she paints so the viewer can experience their personal story and uniqueness.
FEATURED ARTWORK from NAME AMBASSADOR
Water colour on paper, 50 x 34 cm. “This painting is of my favourite street in Moscow city located in the very centre, called Pokrovka street, in the district where I was born. It still has a lot of old buildings that keeps the historical look of the city and always inspire me to paint them. Nowadays this street is one of the main attractions due to its restaurants and trendy places, especially in the summertime.” Sasha used 4 colours of Rembrandt water colours to paint this painting: Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red and Cobalt Blue. She also used Emerald Green for the green roof. The rest of the colours are just a mix of the primary colours previously mentioned.
