Anastasiia Kukharenko
2003, Ukraine
My name is Anastasiia, I am 19 years old, I was born in Ukraine. Now I live with my family on Madeira island, Portugal.
Since childhood, it was my family, my parents, who supported me in all my endeavors and were mentors in everything I did. My parents noticed that I had a penchant for drawing and enrolled me in a local drawing school, where my first teacher was very strict and disliked my noisy nature and laughter. There I studied the three main subjects of drawing with paints, graphic pencil, and composition.
All art students know their training begins with drawing wax apples, clay pots and pieces of fabric in watercolor. Later, we advanced to “sketches from nature” subject, where one of us sat on a chair in a pose, while the others drew it from nature in haste. I was only 7 years old, so I had quite a few problems with figurative drawing. My father helped me with this.
I also visited the Museum of Culture to draw their ornithological specimens. I have always loved birds. I experienced a few more teachers before discovering the world of oil painting and taking classes with my favorite teacher. He never limited any of his students in the choice of painting technique, and the installations he gave us to draw were always whimsical and interesting. Even then, I began to dream of becoming an animator or a computer game developer.
Experience
From the age of 10 I started to draw with oil paints. I drew with dry and oil pastels, and even once I had a series of children’s illustrations for Krylov’s fables made in black ink and pen. My mother made installations and still lifes for me with bouquets of flowers, fruits and various objects in our house.
I graduated from art school and began my passion for Realism and increased attention and love for detail. I was 12 years old and I was inspired by the artist Marcello Barenghi and his hyper-realistic drawings and began to draw simple still lifes with many fruits.
Occasionally I painted small landscapes in gouache and often portraits of my classmates or celebrities. Then, inspiration and my skill in drawing portraits developed more and more. A joyful meeting of a child with a puppy, a moment of happiness in an embrace with a beloved cat, or just a joyful family moment in a green garden, these are moments, so many little joys in the life of each of us, that can brighten up the worst moments in life, and that I find inspirational. Emotional realism – that’s what my mother calls my direction.
I am currently studying a computer engineering degree and my dream is to become a game developer, to give people the opportunity to relax and lean back in their chairs to immerse themselves in imaginary worlds and universes. I love computer games very much and now I am producing 3D character modeling for my indie horror game about the post-apocalypse, many of whose characters, by the way, are based on my younger sister’s paintings.
