Larisa Mardanova
I am Larisa Mardanova. I was born in 1987, I live and work in Russia. My artistic expression is manifested in the form of naive and marginal art, which is characterized by the grotesque style. Passion for graphics and painting is combined in my works, where sometimes I strive to convey images of bygone eras and people who are no longer there.
"Look. I want my paintings to go beyond my own interpretation."
In this way, I call for curiosity, reflection and dialogue.
It is noteworthy that most of my works have the signature "108". This is a numerical designation, where "1" is God, "0" is Emptiness, "8" is Infinity.
Exhibitions:
2021: Intellectual Art Festival, St. Petersburg. Online exhibition, St. Petersburg.
2023: Exhibition of artists from the city of Neftekamsk, Miras Gallery.
Exhibition at the Republican Museum of Fine Arts, Izhevsk. Exhibition of the Luxembourg Art Prize.
2024: Group exhibition "Interconnecting Lines" in New York.
2025: Group exhibition «IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE» in Seoul. Holy Art.
September 2025. Group exhibition in London. Arrival Gallery.
Larisa, your visual narratives often unfold within theatrical compositions where the figures, though emotionally charged, are rendered with deliberately masked or simplified features. To what extent is this choice a rejection of traditional portraiture, and how does it serve your intent to universalize psychological experience or shield individual identity in a hyper-visible digital age?
As the great artist Pablo Picasso once said, "The artist paints not what he sees, but what he feels." I find these words to be great support for myself. My visual images are dictated by an inner intention to reflect an object of interest on canvas, leaving only its essence, as you noted, with simplified features. This is in itself a rejection of traditional, academic portraiture. I do not have an academic background; there is no anatomical definition in my works, but all this is not fatal for me. It does not hinder, and on the contrary, it helps me in my aspiration, my perseverance, and my labor to convey my visual images to the world, to paint as I feel.
In the era of hyper-visual space, my art is a symbolic guide: an observer who likes my work is open to their own interpretation, their own psychological experience. At that moment, my painting begins to belong to them, becoming their emotional property. My context is not important to them, and I, as the artist, am not important. In this equation, there remains only them, my painting, and their lived experience. And if this happens, it means I am doing everything right.
Many of your paintings, such as “Happiness” or “Night Botticelli Amor,” juxtapose innocence with surreal or unsettling undertones pink lambs float midair, masked figures confront the viewer, children are surrounded by mythic and playful symbols. How do you navigate the line between whimsy and psychological dissonance, and are these visual paradoxes meant to mirror deeper existential or cultural contradictions?
I like your question. Indeed, I add an emotional dissonance to every visual object in my work, and I don't finish a piece if, in my opinion, it's not strong enough. Every figure in my work has an attributive characteristic—for example, the geese in "Inside," the mirror and angels in "You Are," the lambs in "Happiness." This is not an eccentricity. It's a deliberate provocation that encourages the observer to think outside the box, to look deep within themselves, to ask questions, find answers, and experience catharsis.Certainly, my art, like any other, touches on existential themes, but the main focus in my work is on psychological depth, as a way of portraying the inner world and internal dialogue.
The recurring use of symbolic elements like horses, masks, balloons, and birds suggests an evolving personal lexicon. Are these objects autobiographical, archetypal, or intentionally ambiguous? How do they function as emotional anchors, narrative disruptors, or allegorical placeholders within your compositions?
The symbolic elements in my works are the attributive characteristics of the painting as a whole. They rely on a heuristic, intuitive method of presenting a symbol in an image and serve as a provocation for emotional contact with the viewer and for conveying my own lived experience, which in the object of the image sometimes has an autobiographical character. However, my symbols and objects do not interrupt the narrative.
In my paintings, all symbols, to varying degrees, carry an allegorical feature. For example, in my work "Happiness," the soaring lambs are an allegory for innocence and vulnerability. And in the work "Night. Botticelli. Amor," the lamb in the hands covering a naked breast is an allegory for innocence, but with protection.
In your work, femininity is both exalted and problematized. Women are presented as ethereal, vulnerable, commanding, childlike, or divine. How do you view your role in contributing to or disrupting the canon of female representation in contemporary art, especially within the context of post-Soviet identity and the global feminist discourse?
My subjective opinion about woman as the opposite to man finds its reflection in my work. In our patriarchal world, a woman does not feel protected but feels vulnerable. And this is a global problem, the questions of which are found in the cultural code of the entire world.
My role as an artist, in this aspect, is to convey my deep feelings, my experience, and my worldview regarding this problem.
Many of your paintings bear titles with emotional weight, such as “Je t’aime,” “Inside,” or “You Are.” Do these titles precede the visual creation as conceptual anchors, or do they emerge as poetic distillations of the completed image? How do you perceive the relationship between language and image in your creative process?
Once again, I'll take the liberty of calling your question to me both very interesting and fitting.
For all my works and throughout my creative process, titles emerge, as you say, as the poetic quintessence of the finished image. I often turn to an emotional connection between the painting and its title. At the stage of completing a painting and adding the final touches, I know, without any effort or searching, what the title for that piece will be.
The relationship between language and image in a painting is an important component for me. I don't have random titles. It's like a mother who has just given birth to her child gives it a name as she feels it. She doesn't conceive the child for its name; she gives it a name, being connected to its energy-information field. I approach this process just as intuitively and emotionally.
Your aesthetic blends the naïve and the sophisticated, the symbolic and the absurd, often evoking a childlike sensibility that seems haunted by adult consciousness. Do you see your art as a form of psychological excavation, unearthing latent memories, traumas, or dreams, or is it more of a constructed mythology where you rewrite narratives through imaginative subversion?
I don't rule out either option. My entire life experience has been marked by my entry into creativity. Naturally, every form of art contains the artist's personality, and my creative process intersects with my life process, with the specifics of my personality, my worldview, and the system of philosophical and aesthetic ideas that leave their imprint on the works I produce.
It's not enough for any creator to have certain academic skills. To fill a painting with living images, it is very important to have certain psychological traits, such as observation—including, however naive it may sound, paying attention to one's dreams as a manifestation of the individual unconscious—the ability to notice, analyze, and, as a fundamental quality, reflect. All these things are collectively realized in my creative persona.
There’s a distinctive spatial flatness and intentional awkwardness in the proportions of your figures that recalls outsider art or folk traditions. How do you balance technical refinement with intentional unpolishing, and what does this tension say about your philosophy of beauty, perfection, or authenticity in art?
In my philosophy of beauty, there is no place for deliberate perfection. I don't possess the tools and knowledge of, for example, one of my favorite great artists, Michelangelo, whose works feature the golden ratio. I possess an inner impulse to create a creative product in the way that I know how, that I want to, and that I feel.
At the very beginning of my creative journey, I didn't pursue the goal of being recognized as an artist, nor did I seek to sell my paintings. I created my works based on internal impulses.
Now, I am very pleased that I have found support, not criticism; I find people who see themselves and something of their own in my art. And perhaps this means that there is a place for everything in art: the beautiful and the ugly, the naive and the refined, the joyful and the sorrowful.
Your use of color is bold, expressive, and unapologetically artificial, ranging from saccharine pastels to electric contrasts. Do you view color as an emotional language, a tool of psychological disruption, or a way to disarm the viewer into a deeper engagement with the darker subtexts of the image?
Certainly, I, like any artist, use the psychological properties of color as a means to convey the idea embedded in a painting to the viewer. However, every viewer and observer has their own personal associations and perceptions of color.
As an award-winning artist operating under the moniker ART108, your practice occupies a hybrid space, simultaneously deeply personal and presented through a branded alter ego. How does this dual identity influence your artistic freedom, audience expectations, and your own understanding of authorship in the age of globalized visibility and social media performance?
Art 108 is my second "I" in creativity. Many of my works are signed with this signature. I am drawn to the aspect of Indian cosmology where the number 108 is described as the basis of all life: 1 represents God, 0 is emptiness, and 8 is infinity. Thus, this is a certain philosophy of my visual signature that conveys specific values and draws attention to my art. A minority of my works are unsigned, with the signature only on the back of the paintings. This is my conscious decision. I use this gesture when I want the observer to be fully immersed in my art and for nothing to visually distract them.
In the era of globalization and the influence of social networks, from a legal perspective, I cannot have the signature "Art 108" solely attached to me as the artist. However, I would like to note that on the back of all my works there is my handwritten signature, which identifies me as "L.Mar, L.Mardanova." I remain very hopeful that my works will be recognizable, regardless of the presence of a signature on them.
If your body of work were viewed not as individual paintings but as a fragmented, nonlinear autobiography, what themes would emerge as the core pillars of your life philosophy trauma and healing, love and estrangement, memory and myth? And do you ever fear that once these themes are fully resolved or understood, the need to create might dissipate?
If I have to choose from the options you gave, I would choose "Memory" as the core theme of my life philosophy.
One of my favorite pastimes is looking at old photographs of my family and even people I don't know; I find it a very fascinating activity. I am very observant during this process and spend a long time examining each photo.
Sometimes I also have dreams about past and non-existent lives—I find this very interesting and, at times, I translate these images into my art.
Sometimes I feel as if I have lived a thousand lives. And in my art, I have a lot to say visually, even within the single theme of "Memory."
I am not afraid of losing the inner need for creativity because I cannot imagine that possibility for myself. Yes, maybe I will lose the need to share my art with a wide audience. The motive to be a known and sought-after artist is there, but the leitmotif of my entire artistic story is not vanity. It's a kind of separation from my experience, from what I have seen and captured in my memory, from what I have experienced and observed—this is a constant process, and all of it I must transfer onto the canvas, onto the working surface, as if onto a memory device.