Evgenia Smirnova

Can you introduce yourself and tell us how your artistic journey began?

My name is Evgenia Smirnova. I was born in Saint Petersburg and have been living and working in Sicily, Italy, for the past 17 years.

My artistic journey actually began quite late. Until I was about 25, I believed that I simply could not draw, so becoming an artist was not something I ever imagined for myself. Then I started drawing almost by accident, and I discovered that art was something I wanted to keep exploring. What began as curiosity gradually became a serious part of my life and eventually my profession.

I studied at the Salvo Coglitori Art School and later continued my education through the Milan Art Institute Mastery Program, an online program based in the United States. Over the years, I experimented with different media and approaches, gradually moving from trying to reproduce what I saw towards creating my own imaginary worlds, where reality and imagination can coexist.

What ideas, experiences or emotions inspire your artwork?

I am inspired by the contrast between the ordinary world and the worlds that exist in our imagination. Many of my paintings begin with a simple image—a tree, a whale, a house or an animal—and then I allow it to move beyond its familiar meaning.

I am interested in dreams, memory, freedom and the quiet places we create inside ourselves. My work often comes from a desire to step away from the constant noise and expectations of everyday life and imagine a place where things can happen differently. I enjoy creating nonexistent worlds where the impossible becomes possible. At the same time, there is usually something personal within these images, even when the story is not immediately visible.

How would you describe your creative process and the materials you use?

My process is intuitive and usually begins with an image, a colour or a small visual idea rather than a finished composition. I rarely know exactly how a painting will look when I begin. I work with watercolour, acrylic, mixed media and oil, depending on what the idea requires.

Colour plays an important role in my work. Sometimes an entire painting grows from a single colour or combination of colours that catches my attention. I usually leave space for the painting to change during the process, allowing unexpected details and ideas to appear. For me, the process is not only about creating a predetermined image, but also about discovering something along the way.

Is there one artwork that is especially meaningful to you, and what is the story behind it?

One of the works that is especially meaningful to me is Roots of Memory, from my recent tree series. The series began with the idea of seeing trees not simply as part of a landscape, but as complete worlds—with their own histories, memories and hidden connections.

In Roots of Memory, the roots become almost as important as the visible tree, suggesting everything that remains unseen but continues to shape us. I added small, light-like elements within the tree, which make it feel almost alive from the inside. For me, the painting became a reflection on memory: what we carry with us, what stays hidden and how the past continues to exist beneath the surface.

What are you currently working on, and what do you hope to explore in the future?

At the moment, I am continuing my series of trees and developing the idea of landscapes as independent worlds rather than simply places that could exist in reality. I am also interested in returning to some of the themes that have appeared in my earlier work, including whales, animals, night landscapes and impossible combinations of familiar things.

I would like to work on a larger scale and translate some of my watercolour ideas into paintings on canvas. In the future, I want to explore the relationship between memory, imagination and the natural world more deeply, while continuing to leave enough freedom for unexpected ideas to appear during the painting process.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/es.artpainting/