"Ballet №1" / "Балет №1" Painting

When you’re thinking of criticizing some piece of art, you’re automatically referring to the subject of form and content and the way they conform to each other. Speaking artistic language, it’s always a matter of representation and expression. Closely examining the works of Baykalova Natalia in chronological order, one can definitely see a noticeable tendency of simplifying the means of representation. Here and now the main part of the play is given to the personal point of view and private feelings; the drawer becomes the painter. With every step the author makes the more and more common and even canonic elements of art transform into innovative details. In the stead of predictable subdued palette here come completely fresh and unexpected combinations of colors. The canvas area grows deeper, spreading into a pulsing dimension, filling pictures up with air. Moreover, an intentional usage of such a vibrant and spicy palette and contrast, and also the mixture of texture and dynamics can undoubtedly refer this artistic endeavor to such a mesmerizing art style as fashion-painting. By the way, the exact style in fine-art is not only a perfect ground for creative experiments, but almost a guaranteed basis for commercial success. The further goes the painter, the more obvious becomes a fact of her search for some new forms of expression: the mixture of textures in some interior still-life paintings, the maximal simplifying of the subject for the sake of color or otherwise, intentional elaboration of some details. Reviewing the last works of Natalia in the style of «acid landscape» it may seem that she is loosing her «comfort skin» and is literally standing on the edge of something new and huge.