Meet Leila Ataya

Today we’d like to introduce you to Leila Ataya.

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I was extremely into art and from a very young age I was drawing and painting at any opportunity. As I was growing up my parents would enrolled me into art classes where I would do all sorts of painting, sculpting and studied many different types of traditional and Russian folk art (I was born in Moscow, Russia). Next step was an art school in Moscow where I studied very classical ways of using graphite, oils and watercolor. It’s very different from a Western style of Art School, just so much more traditional like for example one of the entrance exams was a four-hour long art exam where many students including me would have to complete a drawing of a still life that was put in front of us and then another two hours for a watercolor piece of the same composition. We travelled a lot as a family and ended up in New Zealand where I’ve completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts and later Post Graduate Diploma at the University of Auckland. After that I became a full-time artist and have been doing it ever since. Now days I exhibit in many corners of the world in Europe, Australasia and USA.

Please tell us about your art.
I am a Pop-Surrealist and mainly focus on very detailed painting and drawing. My favorite technical part is to work on details, that is the reason why I prefer to use board rather than canvas as it provides me with a smoother texture. Details help me to tell a tale and invite the viewer to try to untangle the story or even create one for themselves. We see events, objects, people in a very different way from each other, it most commonly depends on our own life experiences. Cultural, educational, religious points of view and sometimes even ‘little’ things like how often we were hugged by our mothers or if we were bullied as a child and so on can make a big impact on the way that we react to visual stimuli in art works and what we choose to see. Some people view my art as a fairytale, bright and beautiful: butterfly wings and big-eyed girls, others on the other hand focus on the pins and hooks, drops of blood, distorted face structure and other darker parts of the story. For me my paintings resemble our life: bad doesn’t come without the good and vice versa, there is always a price to pay and someone behind the scenes manipulating and pulling the strings. There are almost always more questions than answers as we have to figure things out for ourselves. Do we focus on doom and gloom, do we only see the pleasant things and live in Lalaland or can we navigate through, ask the right questions and learn lessons from what life throws at us?

Each painting has its own story that sits on the border between reality and fantasy. Depicted subjects have powerful narratives and can create intimate relationships with the viewer. It is a mutual creative process of untangling that brings the work closer to its completion and creates a mental play-ground to be explored.

Do you have any advice for other artists? Any lessons you wished you learned earlier?
Hmm I think the thing to remember when you are starting out is that nothing really happens overnight and if you have decided to be an artist you just have to persevere. Take part in as many opportunities as you can as you never know what will come out of it and don’t take criticism or rejection personally, I know it’s really hard but most of the time it’s not you but the other person’s taste, mood, etc. As for lessons what I wish I had learned earlier would probably be the importance of social media. I think it would have been beneficial for me to join a bit sooner – I only joined Instagram at the end of last year and should have really done it sooner.

How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
I have a few shows coming up this year, a personal exhibition in October in Dunedin, New Zealand @ the Artist’s Room Gallery and a personal show in London in December with Dorothy Circus Gallery.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.leilaataya.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leilaleilaataya.com6456/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Leila-Ataya-Artist-394519295800/

Image Credit:
Maxim Edmonds-Ataya, Leila Ataya.

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