ABOUT THE ARTIST

-  BFA, Moscow, Theatrical Arts Institute

-  Graduate School of Restoration and Conservation

-  Sculpture courses at Serguey Gaydukov Studio

-  Extensive course on Copying Techniques at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

 

Larissa Morais was born and raised in Moscow. She has been painting since she was in high school, however her first love was not the brush but the keys of a piano. The replacement of a teacher changed her vision from music and into the world of art. While helping her sister one afternoon with her art homework something sparked her passion for painting and perhaps she stumbled upon her destiny.

 

Larissa became a graduate from BFA, Moscow Theatrical Arts Institute, and attended the Graduate School of Restoration and conservation where throughout the years she took courses in conservation and restoration of 15th-and 16th-century paintings. "when you restore a painting, you can paint your own strokes into history". Larissa is influenced by everything in her life. Her brush creates a realistic impression as if it couldn't possibly be anything but a photo. She views her subject matter as architecture. She sees the subject and presents it in a way that is usually not seen from the naked eye. Her favorite subject to paint is the human figure from which she brings a reality to the paintings where attention to detail is as strong as attention to the character of the model. In her artwork, we are in the company of beautiful men and women, intimately poised and positioned. All her artwork is conceived from a sketch, which she later paints onto a large black canvas. Her delicate technique is with very thin layers of oil paint, while using the black background for shadowing. She captures every detail of her subject. For her it is all there, she just uncovers it. Her favorite painting is always the one she is working on and the most difficult thing is to part with her art. She usually falls in love while painting, and she describes it as "it is always bittersweet when parting with a painting however it's always validating". As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "the love of beauty is taste, the creation of beauty is art". Larissa's paintings capture true beauty, they are moving and intoxication, filled with such lush imagery and sensuality. Oscar Wild said, " every portrait that is painted with feeling is portrait of the artist, not the sitter". Larissa's gift of bringing reality to a bare canvas is a true testament of what a great artist truly is.

 

Lauren Leigh Jolliffe - Littoral