NATASHA KRAMSKAYA uses visual alchemy to explore resilience, cultural heritage, and freedom
N atasha Kramskaya’s art studio takes up approximately one-fourth of the garage in her suburban San Jose home. In her small corner, she stores tubes of acrylic and oil paint in bins and on shelves. Finished
and unfinished canvases are propped against the walls. One of the jars on her table contains shreds of previous paintings. She calls her creative process “visual alchemy,” as she frequently experiments with remnants from previous projects, handwritten letters from her parents, newspapers, and one-gallon house paint cans obtained from discard piles at Home Depot.
Natasha didn’t always work with such a wide variety of materials. As a Ukrainian-born artist, her early work was heavily influenced by European classical art, especially Renaissance paintings. She initially studied architecture in Ukraine because it seemed like a practical career path that still allowed her to be creative. However, when she moved to the US, she decided not to continue. “It just felt too linear and rigid,” she says. Natasha then studied graphic design at the San Francisco University Academy of Art, where museums like the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art completely opened her world.
Studying works by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Yves Klein inspired her to use more bold, colorful pigments and be more expressive in her own work. Around that time, she also started to use her materials more freely. “I used to be so precious with paints,” she recalls. “I had these small tubes of watercolor paint, and I was so careful not to waste any, until someone gave me a large acrylic paint tube, and I realized how good it feels to squeeze out more and actually use them.” Her renewed approach to art mirrored her new approach to life: “I felt more freedom after that,” she continues. “My biggest goal in life is to be free and explore.”
“I am not a portrait artist. I am not an abstract artist. Not a mixed media or collage or whatever artist. I am not a woman artist.”
Natasha’s art explores many themes and subjects: empathy, kindness, cultural identity, the fragility of life. Her recent work also incorporates elements of primitive art, inspired by her research of ancient symbols and traditions. Growing up on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, she would often explore the coast of the estuary and find pottery fragments where the archaic Greek city of Tyras once stood. This exploration of history and cultural identity that she cultivated as a child continues to impact her work today.
Her most recent solo exhibition, Beyond Borders, showcases 18 works that range from portraits to abstracts. She transcends cultural boundaries by blending her Ukrainian heritage with a contemporary American art style. She felt inspired to convey the fragility of life through art following the invasion of her homeland in 2022. “You can’t ignore what’s happening. It made me realize that I want to spread peace and kindness through my art. I could have been super dark and negative, but the kindness approach speaks more,” she explains.
Several recurring motifs in her art, such as the sunflower, are intentional and meaningful. The sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine and is a symbol of hope, peace, and resilience. In her piece titled Ukrainian Spring, she explores cultural preservation and the will to survive through a colorful portrait of a woman wearing a flower crown, layered with a Ukrainian newspaper article about the invasion. The newspaper is overlaid on the woman’s chin, throat, and shoulders and is cut into the shape of the tree of life, a common motif in Ukrainian traditional embroidery.
On the opening day of her solo exhibition at Phantom Galleries in downtown San Jose, Natasha gave flowers to everyone who came. “Flowers are delicate, and yet so strong. They are dormant, and then they come back. They’re so resilient,” she says.
In some ways, Natasha embodies resilience every day. She works a nine-to-five job as a creative and brand director for a tech company and often juggles several projects at a time. She creates art mainly in the evenings and on weekends, and she has a deep appreciation for her completely analog creative processes, which contrast with how much she relies on computers and technology at her day job. After a long day at work, she likes to grab dinner and head straight to the studio. “Creating art gives me so much energy, instead of draining me. Even if it’s just color mixing or reorganizing my studio, it gives me so much energy and inspiration.”
At the end of the day, Natasha is many things. She has experimented with several different mediums and has found themes that are important for her to convey in her artwork, but she doesn’t like to be defined by labels. “I am not a portrait artist. I am not an abstract artist. Not a mixed media or collage or whatever artist. I am not a woman artist,” she declares. “I am an artist.”
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