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Elena Dobrovolskaya
USA
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“From Holbein, I take the deep blues and greens of the background, from Durer the dark reds, from Gauguin the flat surfaces and thick outlines.”
Elena Dobrovolskaya is a Russian portraitist based in New York. Classically trained under Oleg Leonov, a member of the Russian Academy of Arts, Dobrovolskaya blends the core tenets of Northern Renaissance painters with the graphic aesthetic of Post-Impressionism.
Modern Nefertiti | Oil
$4,500
36 X 24
I met this girl at the restaurant in Manhattan, she worked as a manager there. She was so beautiful and presented herself with such a gracious manner like a real queen,. I was looking at her amazing neck line which immediately remined me about Egyptian queen Nefertiti, so I could not help myself but asked her to pose for me. At first I made her portrait with pastel but then decided to repeat it in oil. I also painted a golden background to make a resemblance with old Egyptian papyruses.
The elegant simplicity of Dobrovolskaya’s paintings is deceitfully effortless. Rather, it rests on solid drawing foundations and skillful color layering, a process that can last up to one month.
Japanese girl | Oil
$700
36 X 36
I love old Hollywood films, sometimes I took photos of actresses with interesting faces, so I can use it later in my works as a reference photos. An old film called "Sayonara" with young Marlon Brando and a beautiful Japanese actress was an inspiration for my painting "Japanese girl". I took her image but painted it in my own style, plane and graphical, so she looks modern like our contemporary. Giclee prints for sale.
Her palette is very limited for the clothes and background as opposed to the skin, whereby she builds a hypnotic luminosity that draws the viewer’s attention to the face.
“Pensive, dreamy, and overall intriguing; each figure inhabits a world only half-revealed, inviting us to probe further.”
While painting Elena wants to know what are these people’s thoughts. What are they looking at? What has just happened? The possibilities are endless, and it is this very aura of mystery that keeps them forever alive.
Hope (portrait of Amanda Gorman) | Oil
$1,500
24 X 24
When I first saw Amanda Gorman delivering a speech during President Biden inauguration I thought - this beautiful and clever young girl is the hope of the nation! She could inspire the whole new generation, so I wanted to paint her portrait. I used this bright orange color for background to symbolize a bright future for all young Americans, no matter what their background is.
I love to draw with pastel and sanguine, these mediums give me the possibility to express the model's character better I think, and reach the likeness too. Usually I am using sanguine for the face and soft pastel for the clothe and accessories, like in this portrait for the sweater. Pastel brings texture. (Price is for this portrait or for a pastel portrait commission).
Portrait of a young man | Pastel
$1,500
25 X 19
Despite studying drawing during school years, she decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps and graduated with a degree in chemical engineering. Her career soon turned to business - she founded a travel company. 15 years in the travel business gave Elena a unique opportunity to visit the best art museums in the world and to study art history from the original works of the great masters.
“I radically changed my life in 2010 – I closed my business and returned to my passion for art.”
“I was drawn to art from my early years, but the path to becoming an oil painter has not been a straight one.”
She took up private lessons in oil painting with renowned artist Oleg Leonov- an academician, a bright member of the Russian Academy of Fine Art, famous for his realistic portraits and landscapes.
Portrait of a pianist | Oil
$5,000
48 X 36
This is a portrait of my close friend Elena who posed for me. I wanted to capture her sunny optimistic character and her positive energy. She is also a very talented person - a skillful pianist and a painter, so I wanted to pay more of viewer's attention to her beautiful hands. The backdrop is dark green, a classical color from one of Holbein's portraits, he is my favorite artist from the Northern Renaissance movement.
From her teacher, she captured a Russian school technique of Old Masters and added her own vision of classical portraiture with a bright, tasteful color palette. After only a year at Leonov's art studio, Elena Dobrovolskaya was accepted as a member of the Creative Union of Russia's Artists.
Poetry reading | Oil
$4,500
40 X 30
I prefer to work with a live models than with reference photos. It gives you additional energy to create a portrait using your fresh impressions. It also gives you a possibility to play with your imagination and create a thematic image using costumes and accessories like in this portrait of a young woman reading a book of poetry and dreaming about love in the summer garden.
From 2011-2012 she worked as a curator of large-scale photo exhibitions in New York, Moscow, Paris, and Strasbourg, garnering extensive press coverage and appreciation from the audience. In 2012 Elena moved to the US. A few years later, in 2017 she started to exhibit and since then has exhibited broadly in Europe and the United States including New York, London, Paris, Vienna, Milan, Rome, Venice, Florence, and Lisbon.
This is a portrait of British princess wearing a pale yellow dress and a matching hat during late Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee celebration in St Paul Cathedral which is now already a history. I was watching this ceremony on video and took a few photos of Kate in this elegant outfit. I started to paint her portrait on January 9 this year, not knowing that this day is actually her birthday. I think it's a good sign. I decided to add daffodils as a symbol of Wales.
Portrait of Kate, Princess of Wales | Oil
$4,500
36 X 36
“I paint exclusively in oils from live models, as it allows me to best capture the energy of my subject.”
Finding myself | Oil
$4,950
48 X 36
For this portrait of a young man I decided to try a new style - more laconic, more graphical to let the lines speak for themselves. First I painted the whole canvas in the mix of orange and flesh colors, then I could draw a body contour on this background , not by pencil, but by brush with oil. This technique requires an excellent precision because you cannot make a mistake. I left part of his cloth transparent to underline the process of knowing himself and finding his way in this world.
Elena was awarded the 2019 Diego Velazquez Art Price in Barcelona, the 2019 Artist of the Year prize at the Mantova ArtExpo in Italy, and the Leonardo da Vinci Prize in 2020 in Florence. Her art appeared in French, Italian, and British magazines, most notably House & Garden, CQ, Aesthetica, and London Life as well as in the art catalog ‘50 Artists to Invest in’ in Italy in 2020, ‘Trends in Art: Insights for Collectors’ in Great Britain in 2021, ‘Jaarboek Kunstenaars 23’ in Holland and "Important World Artists" Volume V in the US in 2022.
This portrait of a young woman paired with a portrait of a young man and painted in the same technique. She is sitting on the grass, it's green color also symbolizes life in the art of painting. Life which she is going to bring into this world becoming a mother one day. Light blue wide stripes above her are the symbol of steps , sometimes difficult, which you need to take in life to become a person you want to be. (Prints are also available for both paintings).
Becoming a woman | Oil
$4,950
36 X 24
Several times she was a participant in ArtExpo New York, the biggest art fair in the US. In 2019 Elena presented her art during Art Shopping - Salon Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, in 2021 she participated in the Florence Biennale XIIIth edition by personal invitation from the President and founder of Florence Biennale Dtt. Pasquale Celona. In March 2021 Elena Dobrovolskaya's first SOLO portrait exhibition ‘Look into my eyes’ took place at the Artifact Gallery in Manhattan, New York, with a great viewer's appreciation.
Modern Venus-Eternal Love |Oil
$3,500
36 X 24
This painting is a center peace of my triptych "Eternal femininity-Eternal Love" which I painted specially for the theme of Florence Biennale XIII . It was exhibited during Biennale in Florence in October 2021, then in Rome, then at ArtExpo New York in April 2022. Classically Venus is representing Eternal Love, so I wanted to paint an image of a modern woman to show how Venus could look like in our days.
‘My triptych ‘Passion’, ‘Modern Venus - Eternal Love’, and ‘Delicate Beauty’ was devoted to the theme of Biennale -Eternal femininity.”
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