Rita Natarova — Renaissance — Analix Forever Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: October 3 → November 3, 2024

Children reflected in a mirror, a cat looking at itself in the mirror, feet in flip-flops… Looking, reflecting/reflecting. On ourselves, on others. How do we see and accept ourselves, what image of ourselves is transmitted by those who look at us and know us? Does painting reflect THE reality, ONE reality, ours, theirs? These thoughts come to mind when contemplating the works of Rita Natarova. What this artist born in 1980 represents is usually recognisable, but her paintings sometimes contain a touch of mystery, behind which lies a deep reflection on ourselves, on the body, on painting, on how to make a good painting.

Good painting. A whole programme. Thousands of pages have been devoted to this subject and there is certainly no single conclusion, just as there can be none with anything that has to do with taste or beauty.

Nonetheless, there are a few elements that we feel we should be able to identify when talking about a good painting.

One of these elements is obviously technique. Technique can be acquired, mastered and pushed to the point of virtuosity. What strikes you straight away when you read Rita Natarova’s CV is the start of her career and therefore her period of training and study of painting technique, its history and its analysis.

Born in Moscow and emigrated to the United States in 1992 at the age of 12, she began painting in earnest in 1994, when she studied at the Carver Center for Arts and Technology in Baltimore, a school renowned for the achievements of its Art department. She perfected her training as a painter at the Maryland Institute College of Art (1998-2002), also in Baltimore, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting Summa cum Laude — the highest possible distinction