The artistic world of Larissa Ahmadeeva is the projection of her own emotional experience and reactions. Her paintings are reflections of internal states of mind and being, and reveal to the viewer the artist’s philosophical thoughts and splashes of her soul.
     Ahmadeeva shows a theatre of characters, destinies and psychological reaction to the trials of life. Her creative work expresses her view of the world in concentrated form, each painting becoming an ideological challenge to existing realities. Ahmadeeva’s compositions are symbols made up of other symbols. In the painting “Towards the Warmth”, a girl who had found her way into the zone of estrangement and cold is saved by a girl from the zone of warmth and light, who is a symbol of hope and all-absorbing universal love. The image of a girl with long hair often appears in the story of Ahmadeeva’s canvases, ranging from the depiction of an inexperienced teenaged girl in the series “Games for Adults” and “The Exclusive Circle”, to a mature girl in the painting “All Scattered,” a girl who is already a developed personality and feels herself quite a part of the adult world. This image is of a collective character, but one whose typical features are quite similar to those of the author herself; thus Ahmadeeva accentuates her own participation in her artistic painting-parables.
     Larisa Ahmadeeva was born in 1974 in Kuibyshev (USSR). She began her studies in Kazan, where she graduated from the Feshin Arts School. In 1994 she moved to St. Petersburg and devoted herself to self-education, attending interesting lectures at the St. Petersburg Arts Academy and travelling around museums of the world in order to see with her own eyes the works of Great Masters. In the Louvre she was deeply impressed by the paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec; an indelible stamp was left on her by the Museum of Van Gogh in Amsterdam, and by St Peter’s Cathedral in the Vatican.
     The artist works in various genres and with a variety of techniques, including oils, pastels and water colours. She often draws in the open; the stylistic model for her compositions is very close to Impressionism, and Larisa doesn’t conceal her passion for this style. Nevertheless, Ahmadeeva’s painting doesn’t strictly follow the rules of Impressionistic composition and colour space; she modifies and modernises the features of this style, getting inspiration from the flexibility of colour relations and the airiness and lightness of perspective. The motifs of the Impressionists have had a strong influence on Ahmadeeva’s landscapes, where one can clearly see the lucidity and transparency of Monet and his sunny spectrum of colours. The blue, pink and green colour combinations that she often uses in her works show us the image of a romantic, pensive and dreamy St. Petersburg.
     In her creative thinking, Ahmadeeva aims to catch the disappearing moment, to stop a minute of existence and fix its significance on paper. For this reason she is very interested in dance as a dramatic subject. A dance, no matter whether a professional ballet or simply couples dancing in a cafe, conveys brilliantly through gestures the expression of a fixed moment of a feeling or mood.
     Larisa Ahmadeeva’s first personal exhibition took place in 2001 at the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace in St. Petersburg. She regularly takes part in exhibitions in the St. Petersburg’s Union of Artists: in 2003 her works were demonstrated at the 1st International Pastel Biennale and in 2004 at the International Exhibition “From the Avant-garde to the Present Day”. In 2003 Larisa participated in the exhibition “Manege” at the St. Petersburg Central Exhibition Hall. Over the last two years the artist’s exhibitions have been held in the National Centre on Nevskiy Prospect, at the Heritage Art Gallery on Moika, in Len-expo, and at the Mikhailov Art Gallery. As for overseas exhibitions, in 2003 Ahmadeeva’s works represented the ‘Association of Russian Artists’ in Paris; in the same year they were displayed in the Christmas exhibitions in Port Bail (France), and in 2004 Larisa took part in the 2nd International Pastel Biennale in Nowy Sazh, Poland. Since 2004 Ahmadeeva has been a member of the St. Petersburg Union of Artists and a member of the St. Petersburg Pastel Society. Her paintings are included in private collections both in Russia and abroad.

     Isachev Gallery: 82 Moika Emb., Tel.: 312 5131
     Mikhailov Gallery 53 Liteiny Pr., Tel.: 272 6366, 272 4848.