Maria Pak Biography

Maria Pak is a contemporary monumentist artist, a member of the Moscow Union of Artists, the Union of Artists of Russia and the Creative Union of Artists of Russia, associate professor of the department of the drawing of the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V. We met with an artist and hope that getting to know her work and personal thoughts will give you no less pleasure than us.

Could you briefly imagine yourself and tell about your professional path as an artist? Vasily Ivanovich Surikov. Now I teach a drawing at my native institute at the workshop of Kolupaev Nikolai Vladimirovich. I was born in Vladivostok, in the family of a naval officer and philologist. She was engaged in an art school, then at the school and the Institute of Arts in Vladivostok.

Later I went to Moscow and entered the institute only the third time! Then graduate school, teaching at the MSHSHA and parallel to the painting of temples, the spelling of icons and creative works. What hobbies or interests, in addition to painting, are important for your creativity? Do they influence your art and, if so, how? Now I am passionate about the history of Russia. I am interested in everything from the very origin of Rus', from the Rurikovich in the ancient Russian chronicles "The Tale of Bygone Years." Also, the Radzivilov chronicle with excellent miniatures, which became my inspiration when I made sketches in one church.

Then, of course, the Romanov clan, and so on to the present day. The study of the history of Russia is now my most interesting activity that affects my creative work simultaneously, the choice of topics for new paintings. What circumstances or events became decisive at the beginning of the creative path? Probably, this is a case, although it was possible and not by chance, but naturally.

When I studied at school, I had a girlfriend who really wanted to learn how to draw, she went to courses at the Pioneer House and called me with her for the company. Later, together we went to enter the art school, and I entered the first time, but she was not, and it was her third time! She did not try to act anymore, but for me it became a profession.

But my mother said that from early childhood I loved to draw. Perhaps it all started with the fact that when she read fairy tales to me, she often made funny drawings herself and showed me. She did not do it anywhere, and therefore the drawings were funny and naive, but very touching. Are you encountering a creative crisis? If so, what methods or approaches do you use to overcome creative blocks?

Of course, sometimes, very rarely, some kind of apathy comes, there is no intensity of emotions and desire to work for wear. But I have a very good method, it is associated with my immediate profession. I am a monumentalist, and therefore, if suddenly a period begins when there is no desire to do anything, I change the direction and leave the easel painting to monumental, and vice versa.

Do you have certain rituals or preparatory stages before starting work on the work? Probably the most important ritual is to clean the palette before starting work. Although this is more like working moments, but cleansing the palette from previous work is probably my inner desire to put an end to the previous work and at the same time the beginning of something new. How does the process of creating a new job begin?

Why are you usually starting? Of course from the idea! This can be the synthesis of plastic, and literary, and historical ideas. And then an endless series of sketches, sometimes reaches 40 - 50 options, and the final result is most often completely different than originally conceived. I have come to this in recent years! In the early stages of creativity, I made no more than 10 sketches, and then I solved many problems on canvas.

Now I try to solve everything on the sketch. Or, if there was such an opportunity, with which of the artists of past and modern eras, you would like to discuss issues of art and creativity? Of course, there are a lot of beautiful artists in the past and present, and there are periods in my work, when the influence of artists of the past is visible on me. For example, there was a period when Van Gogh loved very much, I wrote in this manner, then there was a period of Bruegel, I really love how he builds the compositions!

Then Velazquez, then Surikov and others. I graduated from a monumental workshop under the leadership of Maksimov Evgeny Nikolayevich and Lubennikov Ivan Leonidovich, they are my main teachers! Now I am working in a workshop under the leadership of Kolupaev Nikolai Vladimirovich - professor of the Department of Painting, Academician, People's Artist. He greatly influenced and affects my work in machine tools at the moment.

I consider him my teacher, and the most interesting thing for me is to discuss with him issues of art and creativity. In the last conversation, we remembered with him another teacher - Ivan Leonidovich Lubennikov. What trace he left in art, and what a strong reaction many people had to his sudden death. Still, he was both an artist and a man with a capital letter!When such people leave this world, they leave a trace, and people react acutely to loss.

Especially when it is so unexpected and early! Do you create your own characters? If so, tell us about them. Of course, as in any work, you want to say something, and it is not always possible to do this by depicting people of your time or environment.

Why limit yourself? If this is a historical character, then you can collect material for a plausible image. But the most important thing is the thought that you pass, and often for this it is not necessary to portray people from history. For example, the work of the Widow House: In addition to the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna, all the other characters have been invented!

There were several photos, but they were more used as a historical certificate of the costume that was worn at that time. I would like to talk to him. I would ask how difficult it is to write poetry, how he did it. I saw Russia, what I thought about our future. He is the Creator, and no matter how trite it sounds, I am interested in knowing his creative approaches and plans.

Could you share an interesting or unusual case related to your work? This is probably even a terrible case! At the end of the institute, another of my teacher, Viktor Pavlovich Myasoedov, invited me to work in the temple of the Mother of God on the horde. The temple is a special, not only as a historical monument, where there are my paintings, but also due to what happened in it.

The painting in the temples often occurs in the forests - these are such large and very high building structures, since you need to paint walls and ceiling. And so I walk through the forests at the height of a 3-storey building, suddenly the boards move apart, and I begin to fall down. Instinctively, I put my elbows and linger between the boards. All life flashed before my eyes!

I went down and realized that I needed to take baptism. You can not paint temples, referring to this superficially. I took this case as a sign from above that I have been living incorrectly. At first I read the Bible and then was baptized. Which of your paintings is the most unusual for you and why? Probably the picture "Dream of Mary." She is very alarming and, in my opinion, is not like everything else of my work, although very sincere.

It was really a dream that I transferred to the canvas. Neither before nor after such experience was. Usually I have been looking for a topic for a very long time, and then sketches are drawn. In this case, the sketch simply came, and I embodied it as it is. The only thing, I changed my figure for a long time, I had it like a chagal, flew in a large sky, I didn’t like it.

In the end, I increased it, and the figure itself became like the sky. Art, by and large, gives hope and, as a result, faith. It was not for nothing that art itself has always been connected with faith. It was temple art that gave work to artists and was a stronghold of culture for many centuries, giving people faith and hope. Now a little differently, but the vector remains the same-to give a ray of light, faith in the best, in the purpose of a person for good deeds.

This, in my understanding, is the mission of the artist! How can we differ from the animal world, if not art? As soon as the first person took the coal in his hands and made a rocky drawing, he became a reasonable man, a creator man. Does your artistic activity affect other spheres of your life, and if so, how? Artistic activity is the basis of my life, a frame on which everything else is worn.

And first of all, this is my child, who, in the way I think, is my best work! If so, what is it manifested in? I hope that there is a positive example that in our society, despite our dissimilarity, we accept each other. Acceptance did not come right away, I remember there were problems at school because of appearance.