Art by Violetta
Luxuriant color, solid drawing and composition, ethereal light and physical movement in light, combined with a refined sensitivity to landscape, and still life painting and portraiture, characterizes the oeuvre of Violetta Chandler.
Violetta Chandler, fifth generation artist, was born on November 26, 1965, near Odessa, Ukraine, on the Black Sea. This beautiful, picturesque, bohemian city is rich with traditional European architecture, culture and art. Her first lessons in art were taught by her father Yakov Tsatskin, artist and teacher, when she was four years old. Later, they completed many commissioned murals together.
At the age of ten, Violetta was accepted at the Junior School of Art, where she studied for four years. Then she continued her education at the Repin College of Arts and Odessa State Institute from which Violetta graduated with honors and received her Masters degree in Fine Arts and Teaching in 1992. Her professors are famous, trained at St. Petersburg Russian Academy of Art.
In 1995 Violetta, with both of her parents, her daughter and family moved to Sarasota, Florida, where she continued painting and exhibiting her work. Soon, Violetta accepted the position of teaching oil painting at the Ringling School of Art and Design, Sarasota, Florida, Gulf Coast Museum of Art, and St. Petersburg College. Her work includes, but not limited to, landscapes, portraits, custom murals, and live event paintings. Violetta does commissions of her work as well as teaches workshops and private classes for all ages.
As an original member of Plein Aire Cottage Artists, she was awarded in May of 2007 the Florida Preservation Award for Historic Preservation. She has also participated in several solo and group exhibitions, including Florence Biennale, Italy; Dungarvan, Ireland; Gulf Coast Museum of Art, Largo, Florida; Cornell Museum of Art, Del Ray Beach, Florida; Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida; St. Petersburg Museum of History Solo Exhibition and the Capitol Meeting Room in Tallahassee.
In December, 2007, she received a life time invitation to participate in the International Juried Exhibition Florence Biennale, Italy. Violetta’s works of art are internationally collected by private collectors and awarded in many exhibitions. Her paintings have been featured in magazines and publications internationally. Violetta is a member of the Fine Art Society of Sarasota which provides many scholarships to art students to continue their education. Also, she is a Judge and Advisor for the National Society of Arts and Letters.
Most recently, Violetta is being featured in a PBS documentary following her Plein Aire painting in Florida and France and her work in historical preservation with her students. The documentary, “Save Our Cottages – Artists with a Cause” aired in Spring of 2018.
Violetta’s Painting Style:
“Her painting style integrates 19th Century Russian Realism and Impressionism with 19th Century French Realism and Impressionism fused together with a modernist palate of strong vivid colors. Her painting techniques are technically varied, some paintings combine thin glazes along with thick impasto applications. In regard to appropriating Russian realist styles in her landscape work two important late 19th Century artists come to mind: Ilya Repin and Ivan Yendogurov. Repin’s paintings are highly emotional and epic. Yendogurov are spiritual and calm. It should be noted that Repin’s classical earth-toned chiaroscuro has also influenced her portraits. Because of her academic training in drawing, her portraits have intense precision in the eyes, arms, and hands. While painting portraits the artist likes to talk with her sitter bringing out nuances of character in their posture.
The primary influence on her in regard to color is Claude Monet and in French Realism, Camille Corot and Gustave Courbet. Her color palette is in the Impressionist canon, but the application of thick pigment (impasto) is closer to French Romantic Realism. These elements are combined with subtle light strokes that give her ideas an unassuming feel for the passage time. Instead of graying down color in shadows, as in the academic tradition, she applies Monet’s idea of complimentary color in the shadow of a lit object’s principle hue.
For Chandler “painting is a dialogue rather than a monologue” with the sympathetic observer. In reference to this, “my paintings can seem unfinished, because I want the emotional connection to the work by the viewer to be completed in their imagination”.
Her sensitivity to all the elements of art is demonstrated in the fact that her personal family photographs as well as her photo studies for paintings have all the clarity and balance to be expected of a well-trained eye.
One can easily enter the illusions of her paintings with the suspension of assumptions of arts historical purpose and the singularity of a certain style. Entering her illusions of space and mood can be effortless, because besides from her professional training her work has insight about our place in the world and the pleasure of seeing light on vivid color.” – Written by: Kevin Costello
Some Exhibitions and Awards:
Dungarvan, Ireland – Plein Aire Cottage Artists
Tallahassee, The Capitol Meeting Room
Solo exhibition, St. Petersburg Museum of History,
Cornell Museum of Art, Delray Beach, Florida
Diploma Florence Biennale, Juried International exhibition of Contemporary art, Florence, Italy
Award, Florida Trust for Historic Preservation – Plein Aire Cottage Artists
Instructor of oil painting work shop, Venice, Tuscany, Italy
First Place Award, the Vinoy Anniversary Juried Competition
Pasco- Hernando College, FL- Plein Aire Cottage Artists
Gulf Coast Museum of Art Juried Exhibition, Largo, Florida
Solo Exhibition Studio Encanto, St. Petersburg, Florida
Solo Exhibition, Palm Ave Gallery, Sarasota, Florida
Publications and TV Shows:
PBS
FOX TV
Tampa Tribune
NY and Chicago Russian American News
St. Petersburg Times
Sarasota Tribune
Cover of Florida Woman News Magazine
Dupont Registry – Featured artist – Plein Aire Cottage Artists
Milford Times, Michigan
Dungarvan Leader, Ireland
Cover of Attitudes Magazine, Sarasota
Florence Biennale 2007 Catalog
Violetta is planing 2020 workshop series in the South of France. For more information, please contact:
941-879-1249
or e-mail: artbyvioletta1@gmail.com
Website:
Art by Violetta
Art by Violetta Facebook Page
941-809-5720
artbyvioletta@yahoo.com