Making Magic
Oil paint on canvas 270 x 191 cm
Artwork Description
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This painting, the largest within my practice up to date, tells a great, and very personal story of mine. It has been very influential in my life and art practice, which made me want to portray it on a large canvas. Every form in the painting has a real-life object, off which it was based of, yet I decided to make it as abstract as possible, to not let the viewer recognize the forms and the story. The only hint of the story, is the title.
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The core of my practice is based on the exploration of the materiality of paint and the expressive potential of mark-making. I explore these material values by drawing inspiration from the natural world and capturing the organic forms; from stones and trees to fungi and animal anatomy.
Despite my work being heavily grounded in the formal language of painting - the main statement, that I am posing, is the fact that we (humans), shall not forget the fact that we are animals. And a lot of emotions, feelings, and actions that we are taking and experiencing have beastly roots.
Also, I connect the nature of human beings to the wider aspect of the question: "What is natural?", through exploring alive and non-living organisms/formations within our world, such as insects, animals, plants, fungi, and rocks. I use these rarely uniform and charming forms, to appreciate and respect Mother Nature and connect to our animalistic roots.
Despite my work being heavily grounded in the formal language of painting - the main statement, that I am posing, is the fact that we (humans), shall not forget the fact that we are animals. And a lot of emotions, feelings, and actions that we are taking and experiencing have beastly roots.
Also, I connect the nature of human beings to the wider aspect of the question: "What is natural?", through exploring alive and non-living organisms/formations within our world, such as insects, animals, plants, fungi, and rocks. I use these rarely uniform and charming forms, to appreciate and respect Mother Nature and connect to our animalistic roots.
Nikita Andrejev
Born in 2001, in Vilnius, Lithuania. At the age of 11, I have picked up carpentry. Although my artworks do not focus on woodworking beyond stretcher-making, I have been producing furniture and other woodworking projects ever since, and still consider them to be a part of my creative practice. In 2016, at the age of 15, I have moved to the UK and lived there as a boarding student at "The Royal Wolverhampton School" (Wolverhampton, UK), where started drawing and painting. After finishing high school (GCSEs), I moved as a boarding student to "Liverpool College" (Liverpool, UK) in 2018, where I graduated with A-levels. In 2020, I started a bachelor's degree in Fine Art and Design at "Lancaster University" (Lancaster, UK), while narrowing my focus purely to painting. That was the time that I consider to be the start of my professional practice, bringing the quality of my work to the industry standard and exhibiting publicly. I completed my degree in the summer of 2023. Shortly after, I built my first large concrete sculpture. In September 2023, I moved to London, where I am currently residing, while carrying on my creative practice of painting and exhibiting.