Shana

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Biography

Shana was born in 1967 in the town of Fergana, Uzbekistan in the former Soviet Union. As a child she was always drawing and painting, she knew her parents wanted her to be a musician so to please them she studied music, however her heart was with the visual arts. It seemed to be calling her, searching her out.

Deciding to follow her dream she enrolled at the Benkoff Art College in Tashkent where she studied scenic art. After graduating she moved directly into an extensive program at Ostrosky State University of Fine Art. She majored in theater and film but continued to study and develop her painting. She graduated in 1990 as an artist of Television and Cinema.

The students had to create most of their own exhibitions, due to the limited opportunities in the Uzbeki art market. They would search out unused storefronts or warehouses and set up large salon style shows. During this period Shana met and married her husband and the couple moved to Moscow where they settled for a few years before immigrating to Canada. Today they reside just north of Toronto, Ontario where she shares a studio with her artist mother-in-law.
Her current work is an easy mixture of funky still lifes and moody, romantic figurative works. The paintings are filled with her favorite motifs, with themes of suspended time and living in the moment. To date Shanas paintings are featured in select galleries throughout Canada, Great Britain and the USA.

Artists Statement

To Shana her art is all about love. In life, as in love, nothing is constant. Feelings that overwhelm you one moment can melt away and another mood appears. It is this constant change that inspires Shana.

Love is in living in the moment, she says. I like to try to capture the feeling when two people connect. To show in a painting the spark of that first moment.
She draws upon her memories and experiences to provide her with subjects; painting objects and scenes that evoke an emotion in her.

Technique

Shana is an artist with a strong personal style who embraces innovation, while at the same time remaining true to the elegant traditions of her classical training.

She starts the pieces with a loose under drawing and then works the colors and texture up from there. She uses less conventional methods like scratching into the paint with the tip of her brush or even working the paint with her hands to create the subtle ambience that is evident in her work. Using both bold and detailed strokes she creates scenes that are soft and romantic with a delightfully mannered, often dramatic effect.

The works on canvas are comprised mainly of acrylics and various glazes, while the works on paper are mixed media as she uses oil crayon and washes extensively.