Margarita Sikorskaia
Margarita Sikorskaia was born in Sestroretsk, a resort town and section of St. Petersburg, Russia, and grew up a self-described free-spirited tomboy, climbing trees, zooming on a bike, getting dirty, and getting into trouble. “I think that gave me free spirit, ability to make my own decisions and stick up for myself,“ she says. Her older sister taught her to read and write and draw, and her mother was determined to encourage her to develop her talent.
Margarita came to the United States in 1990 at the age of twenty-two, having trained in art at the Hertzen Pedagogical University of St. Petersburg, and settled in Minneapolis at the urging of a friend. Soon, however, she was left to find her way on her own.
Learning English, supporting herself with small jobs, she made helpful connections in the Minneapolis art community – including Charles Thysell, who became a mentor to her. They collaborated for three years.
Working on her own, she has focussed her attention on the everyday emotions of life, and brought them to her canvases with singular simplicity and strength. Much like tableau vivants, her characters express their meanings through appearance, pose and surroundings. The effect is at once particular, because we are familiar with her beings, and symbolic, because they refer to a view of life the artist wants us to be conscious of.
This is how the artist describes her present gallery exhibit:
“My current work is all inspired by raising my son, Ilya. I paint the emotions he produces in me. I am reliving my own childhood in a way, and I am also relating to my own mother once again. I think that we actually never grow up. I watch Ilya and remember myself at that age. In nature, kids have such a wonderment about them. As adults, we just pass by such things. I want people who look at my paintings to once again be like that free, uninhibited child, to remember the magic, imagine, feel with one’s gut. The joy of being. “Simple pleasures” might be the topic of my new work.”
To see early collaborative works with Charles Thysell please click here.
