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"Five things
I like the most:
1. Music; 2. Sex with man I love; 3. Art; 4. Lobster; 5. Cuban Cigars. Especially Cohiba."
It often
happens that meeting it’s creator challenges the impressions formed after seeing art.
However, when I met Nadia Russ her personality came across as being in total harmony with her artwork: bright
and florescent but not garish; well balanced but not overpainted. A bit showy, slightly humorous, playfully erotic
with a touch of mysticism. Nadia refused to talk about her past. But she did talk about her influences she said. “I
always need challenge. It was too stifling for me just to be a classical
musician. I love diversity: different music, Rock, Pop, Hip-Hop, different people, different environments, I love
New York, New York is the Best city in the World, challenging and stimulating.” After establishing a career
as a musician she went on to publish a book of humorous stories with her own illustrations “There came a point
in my life when a ‘block’ just lifted off me and I started painting. I think if a person
has a sense of harmony in his soul it will manifest itself in any endeavor.” Her compositions are harmonious
but at the same time challenging, sometimes with “pop your eyes out” color combinations, sometimes with the subject
matter. She came up with a term Neopoprealism to describe her work. Her brightly colored canvases
with flat linear rendering are reminiscent of the psychedelic posters of Peter Max. But in some works like “His Inner” or “Magicians”
she uses crisscrossing lines that connect figures with mystical signs surrounding them in patterned backgrounds. Nadia's
implement of black outlines in her paintings give her works a very defined, flat, graphic nature. In the work “New
York Faces” the composition is drawn with black acrylic lines on the white background with selective use of blocked
colors. Nadia is a master of balancing the hi energy colors in her compositions with poetic drawing style. Her art
is whimsical and philosophical at the same time.
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