What is behind those islands? Painting

Ulyana Smakova is a professional artist from Kazakhstan living and working in Finland in the Art Center Järvilinna (http://www.jarvilinna.fi/). Ulyana was born in Kazakhstan, and she has come a long way before finding herself in Finland fell in love with the forms of water and forest. Her favorite way of painting is oil on canvas using a palette knife, but he also loves experimenting with acrylic and watercolors with different types papers. Ulyana finds her inspiration in nature, people and cultures. Before she came to Finland, she changed several professional fields from a kindergarten teacher and seller to a professional Japanese language translator and a secretary in the embassy of Japan in her country. In her 40ths, she ended up in Finland, planning to improve her skills in the field of international communication. However, life changed plans, and she decided to stay in this country for a longer time as a professional artist. She started painting as soon as she moved to Finland in 2016. The radical changes in life, the language barrier and social exclusion during the first month of immigration on the one hand, and the sense of security and inner freedom she unexpectedly felt here, the other hand, gave her the energy and inspiration to paint. On a garage sale, she bought an old set of oil paints and two canvases for 1 euro. A friend gave her a palette knife, and since she did not have any brushes, she began to paint using only a palette knife starting the same day. During the first year, she painted about 30 small-scaled landscapes. "That was a special period in my life, when I was in dire need of rethinking my previous experience and searching for directions where to go next. Painting helped me to concentrate on my thoughts. I am a self-taught artist. My main areas are impressionism and expressionism. I paint with oil, acrylic and watercolor. I like to experiment with medias and different types of paper. Now art is my main activity and I consider myself as a professional artist."