Studio Interview
Five years of painting in a small Lisbon living room corner where constraint became catalyst, and chaos became method.
I found this apartment in 2019, and when COVID started, I thought—this is it. I'm going to be a painter. I bought canvases in every size and all the paint I'd been eyeing. The light here is beautiful, the view over the historical part of Lisbon. There's special energy here.
At some point the living room was completely filled with drying canvases on the floor. We nailed unstretched canvas to the wall. There are paint drips everywhere. But I like working on stretched canvas so I can move it around—I hang paintings in the living room, the hallway, even the bedroom. Each wall has different light, and different positions communicate differently. This tells me so much about the depth, the color, the marks. Whether it needs something more or what my next move should be. The apartment walls became partners in the process.
“The apartment walls became partners in the process.”
This space helped me define who I really am and what I'm capable of. Working with large canvases, stretching them, rolling them, packing them—all in this tiny space. It proves I am much bigger than I think I am.
Living in your studio keeps you accountable. You walk through it every day, so you have to organize constantly, keep your energy clean. No pile of unresolved paintings.
The thought of ever leaving scares me a bit. What if all this magic was that light coming from the window? What if another space wouldn't be as lucky?
“It proves I am much bigger than I think I am.”
I look for a color reference—books with color palettes, interior magazines, fabrics, photos of flowers. Something in the colors coming together needs to click with me. Maybe it's how light falls through flower petals, or dances in a reflection on glass. When it clicks, I feel lifted, lighter. Like my body is filled with purpose—to translate this encrypted message of light and color into how I feel it.
That's the first stage. I dilute acrylic paint and work with it like watercolor, the way I learned at art school when I was 13. This preserves the canvas texture. Then it's safe to add more layers without looking overworked.
“To translate this encrypted message of light and color into how I feel it.”
I want to get away from the initial reference and build something I don't know yet. Sometimes I turn the canvas upside down and work from a completely different reference. Something new that I need to recognize—to build from strange shapes and awkward details into something that feels mine.
I work through multiple layers, adding marks, covering over, adding more, painting over, adding again. Until it makes sense to me. Until I recognize it as a crop of another universe. A dreamy garden with floating flowers. Biomorphic shapes in a weird dimension. I'm not trying to describe it—it just feels like it could be real.
“Until I recognize it as a crop of another universe.”
Music guides the whole process. It helps me breathe, not get stuck. I follow the rhythm. Sometimes music and breathing inform my movement. I can see the composition of music, and it helps me start or move when I have a break. When I'm stuck and don't know what to do, I tune into the music, soak up the energy and rhythm and flow, then develop it into mark-making.
I'm mixing different approaches and different energies into my painting process. That's why it looks so diverse and sometimes unpredictable.
Patterns and dense colors are part of the cultural folk heritage where I'm from. I did folk art as part of my voluntary classes at art school as a kid, and I guess it influenced my visual language. But mostly, I'm just uncomfortable with emptiness on a canvas. I need to fill it with details, dimension, meaning.
I'm highly sensitive and prefer silence—I listen to very quiet, slow music. But in terms of art, for my eyes, I like to entertain them. Give them a lot to look at, dive into colors and texture. It's almost a tactile feeling. When I look at all these colors, they make me feel happy, content. I almost feel it with my skin. That's what I'm aiming for.
“I almost feel it with my skin.”
Yes. This comfort is maybe running away from anxiety. It's comfort because it's busy visually. For me now it feels like the perfect environment. I don't like visual silence. I like to be curious, to move my eyes through details. Like a dense garden, a bush where I can hide.
“Like a dense garden, a bush where I can hide.”
There's a click, a match—certain colors fit into my soul. Like looking for the perfect dessert, my body is looking for a color-treat. When I find it, I feel complete. For some time, until the next search begins.
I have five years of classical fundamental art education in Russia, starting when I was 13. I learned about value, color, mixing colors, structuring composition, cropping, finding the best angle. We painted a lot of still life. I worked with clay, folk art, pencil drawing, charcoal, watercolor, a bit of oil.
But the rule was: you paint what you see. You cannot let your hand go beyond the edge. You need to learn first. That was exhausting. I desperately wanted to be noticed and recognized by my teacher, so I managed to suppress my expressive nature, follow the rules and grids, create clean, neat visuals without any mistakes to receive the highest score.
Now, everything I was holding back, I let go. I let myself not paint precisely, not go close to the reference, make up things myself. That was the missing piece in the art program—the expressive part. Using paint not only to paint what you see, but as a tool to continue some energy that's held in your body, so it continues into the world through your hands onto the surface.
It's not that I'm expressing myself. It is expression. It is energy. I'm not painting my energy—I'm creating energy on the paper. I'm just passing it through.
“I'm just passing it through.”
Photography by Olga Moreira, photographer.
