Bella Matveeva

Bella Matveyeva’s “St. Petersburg Hoffmanniana”, painter, who had become in a way a myth of this city. Strange and piquant visions, arrogantly disregarding all signs of the present time, captivatingly and proudly pass through her canvases, proving that it is always Silver Age in Saint – Petersburg that time is not master of in and that there’s nothing more natural for a St.Petersburger, then feeling of oneself as a personage of a risky game, or as a bohemia poseur, which in essence is nothing other than epic of heroism. Now sharp and penetrating, now obscure and incoherent, they interlace into an ornament of sleepy fantasy of the past, which is so far that has become modern. Maybe one can tell that they are raving or chance caprice of innermost desires, but the ornamental alternation of naked bodies is almost tragic – and they are so fragile, so touching, so open, - like abandoned children, like our own city, lost in the century that is not understandable and is not understood.

Bella Matveeva since 1995 Professor of the New Academy of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg

1978-1982 Bella Matveeva graduated from the Department of Restoration of Tempered and Oil Painting at the Serov Art College, Leningrad, USSR.

1978-1982 Bella Matveeva worked as a restorer of Russian ancient churches.

1985-1989 Main window dresser of the famous department store «DLT», Leningrad, USSR

PERSONAL EXHIBITIONS:

1991 «Flora and Fauna», Museum of the Revolution, Leningrad, USSR (c)

1992 «Distinction» The State Russian Ethnographic Museum, St. Petersburg (c)

«Pelin gallery» Helsinki, Finland

1993 «Dana-Dyad» The Museum of the New Academy of Fine Arts , St. Petersburg

«Exhibition of one day» Mayakovsky Library, St. Petersburg

«Salon-Buduar» Kunstsalon, Berlin, Germany

1994 «Leda and the Swan» The Museum of the New Academy of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg

«Hellas-Greece» Mayakovsky Library , St. Petersburg

1997 «La Voyeuse» Chetwynd Stapylton Gallery, Portland, Oregon, USA

1998 «Erotic Dreams» Mayakovsky Library, St. Petersburg

1999 «Letters to Bella», Gallery 21, St. Petersburg

Graphic arts. Mayakovsky Library, St. Petersburg

2000 «Girls in the Boudoir», Art Kiosk Gallery, Brussels, Belgium

2001 Gallery Café des Artistes, Moscow

2004 Bella Casa Salon, St. Petersburg

2006 «On the Carpets», Mansion in Small Gnezdnikovsky, Moscow

«Avian Influenza», Anna Nova Gallery, St. Petersburg

2007 Heritage Gallary, Moscow

2011 «Dedicated to Mapplethorpe and the end of the 20th century», All Gallery, St. Petersburg

2013 «Coronation of Poppea», opera-work, Rizzordi Art Foundation...