For just two hours Monday, Feb. 25, anyone stopping by The Grand Bohemian Gallery in downtown St. Augustine made a discovery sure to elicit a “wow.”
World-renowned artist Anna Razumovskaya, having just finished an exhibit in Atlanta and en route to another in Naples, Florida, took a brief detour to the Nation’s Oldest City to show some of her work.
“The Grand Bohemian Gallery is right in the middle, so we decided to stop and just talk to the people, express our great gratitude,” she said. “They’ve been such an amazing gallery to work with, and they have great presentation of our work.”
The Russia-born and -educated artist creates works that blend the classical with the modern. Though her subjects vary, she often paints dynamically posed women draped in colorful attire — the clothing often gathered around or blossoming about the subject.
“For me as an artist, it’s easy to express myself through the form that I know,” Razumovskaya explained. “The female form, I can relate to it. I know the subject, so it’s easy for me to transfer my feelings, my emotion, through the form I know.”
Another favorite subject is horses in mid-action.
“I love this subject,” she said. “It’s majesty and grace and beauty and movement and motion; it’s all there.”
Her paintings are usually done in oil and are often large, sometimes 70-by-80 inches. Her work has been described as a “dialogue between reality and dreams.”
Razumovskaya also creates bronze sculptures, which she admits was a challenge when she started.
“I was thinking that if I know how to draw, it will be easier for me,” she said. “But then I realized it requires a completely different mindset.”
Razumovskaya is based in Canada, having first arrived there 26 years ago with $100 in her pocket and “a huge, amazing dream.” She found a job and began to sell her work for as little at $9.99.
Today, her paintings can be found in some of the biggest collections around the world — including that of the British Royal Family.
Through her art, she wants to remind people that: “We have to remember that life is beautiful, and what a gift we have to be alive!”
Learn more about Anna Razumovskaya at anna-art.com.
