LAB #5(44) 2008

Lab view _

MARIA KRASNOVA-SHABAYEVA _ PATTERNED PORTRAITS | Graphic Maria Krasnova-Shabaye- va | Text Anna Lengle | If you are an artist, your work is your main hobby. The art for Maria is like science – you research the matter and make dis- coveries by many experiments. Maria has only one research field: human being as an infinite source of puzzles and solutions. Maria with a sonorous long surname Krasnova- Shabayeva never dreamt to be an illustrator and never studied this art. In the Ufa college of arts she was prepared to the life of a careless painter, who can always say the sacramental «I see it like that!» However, Maria made a very nice illustrator, known to all the Esquire magazine and Bolshoi Gorod newspaper readers. Having a new profession, where she is partly dependant on the customers, Maria holds the right to express her own view of life freely in non-commercial projects. The Patterned Portraits series was planned as free from any names, but the international ROJO almanac, where Maria sent the project, demanded a name in English. This is how the Patterned Portraits combination originated, which reflects the topic of the works very well. The life that is like a bacchanal masquerade, which we are invited to dive into, see- ing the world with a new kind of curiosity, requires a constant change of masks. The models we try on and live with, deceiving ourselves, are the pat- terns mentioned in the name. The author saw their various colors. Maybe Maria herself hides behind one of them…

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№5 _ 44 _ 2008