Liudmila Kondakova, Russian (1956 - )

Since childhood, Liudmila Kondakova has been fascinated by traditional art, by a sense of spirituality that transcends common existence. Her painting technique is that employed by medieval egg-tempera painters. Her palette, influenced by the icon painters of Byzantium, is both vibrant and beautiful, with colors that blend in subtle, poetic balance.

Kondakova emigrated to the United States in 1991. A graduate of the Grabar Center in Moscow, she also attended Russia's School of Sacred Arts, the Moscow Pedagogical Institute and the Moscow Art Institute. The artist received practical training while an apprentice in Moscow under the guidance of modern monastic icon painters.

She is the penultimate iconographer of the city. This style known as Romantic Realism employs a combination of the meticulous attention to every detail and a romantic mood that allows the viewer to become intimately involved in the work. In the artist's words: "To me, these streets, cobblestones and aged buildings evoke a sense of nostalgia and romance with a touch of melancholy. It is the ideal kind of space in which I would like to live. In my art, the essence and beauty always rests in the details."

Regarding her choices for subject matter, Kondakova states - "When I work on a Paris street scene, I try to use interesting detail to conjure up the atmosphere of the street in its entirety." In the hands of this artist, the shops and boulevards that have been interrelated by generations of artists' takes on a persona that reflects both the present day as well as a rich sense of the past.

Recently she was featured in a PBS Television Special devoted to her art. The artist returns to Paris each year to rediscover the unique atmosphere. With her work in private collections around the world, original paintings and serigraphs by Liudmila Kondakova can be found in galleries Nationwide.