Inna Petrashkevich:

Floral Fantasy

  

January 7 - February 28, 2022

Inna Petrashkevich lives in  Orsha, Belarus. A small town in a small Eastern European country, it is one of those places  seemingly untouched and unspoiled by civilization. Time has slowed down in Orsha, and the 21st century feels like the 18th.

Inna Petrashkevich, a contemporary Belarusian artist, received her Masters in Fine Arts and Graphics Design from Belorussian State Pedagogical University. She has been teaching art painting and (mainly watercolors) for over 30 years. Her primary focus is on watercolor painting, but she has also worked on illustration and graphic design.

Her work is watercolor paintings are in private collections in the UK, Cyprus, Latvia, Estonia, Norway, Russia, Israel, Ukraine, and the United States.  She regularly hosts master-classes in Minsk and Moscow, where she teaches her watercolor technique. Inna paints almost every day, and is followed by over thirty thousand people on Instagram.

Far away from civilization and modern luxuries, perhaps it is in Orsha  that it is easier to notice the small plants and creatures in her garden. The town  is surrounded by one of the densest and oldest forests in Europe, Polesia. It is here where everything is breathing around you. We might not hear their sounds, but the plants and flowers are breathing too. Her watercolor paintings are not of inanimate, merely colorful objects:she is painting living creatures, flowers that are not merely beautiful and which  give us joy, but which are ephemeral. Irina paints flowers that dissolve in the morning fog. Floating like clouds, they are here one second and disappear the next.

Her subjects are not merely nature and beauty, but the emotions evoked by spending time and attention focused on the sights, sounds, and energies of her forest home. Quiet and serene, her studies nonetheless suggest and underscore the wistful and fleeting nature of time - her artwork captures the evanescence of the short but beautifully evocative moments she captures for us: a memento mori exemplified by fragile blooms.

Orsha, Belarus. 2021. Watercolor on paper

Last Year's Summer Wind

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Orsha, Belarus. 2021. Watercolor on paper

Lavender Tales

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Orsha, Belarus. 2020. Watercolor on paper

A tree branch

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Orsha, Belarus. 2021. Watercolor on Paper

May Tulips are saying their goodbyes

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Orsha, Belarus. 2020. Watercolor on paper

Peas and Nasturtiums

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Orsha, Belarus. 2018. Watercolor on paper

Last Leaves

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Orsha, Belarus. 2021. Watercolor on paper

Summer Mosaic

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Polesia

Polesia is one of the last and largest remnant of the once immense primeval forest that formerly stretched across the European Plain.

A rare surviving example of this ecosystem, Polesia has amazing biodiversity. It is home to packs of Wolves, Wild Boar, and European Bison, Europe's heaviest land animal that became almost extinct in the early 20th century.

Europe's Amazon

Some call Polesia “Europe's Amazon” for its expansive wetlands, swamps, peatlands, forests, bogs, marshes, and lakes. Three major European rivers start in this region and carry water and life to the rest of Eastern Europe. The remoteness of Polesia shaped and preserved a unique culture, traditions, and folklore.

Polesia is full of life. Unique, wild and untouched.

Let us know how you feel about this exhibition and Inna's work