Marina Lukyanova

Marina Lukyanova, the artist of PERSONITA cards (with Ely Raman), the COPE cards, and the TANDOO cards, was born in Leningrad, to an architect and a teacher of mathematics. Her father, the architect, was a skilled watercolourist. He would return home from all over Russia with sketches he’d made during his frequent travels. From her early childhood, Marina’s father trained her to reproduce life’s beauty – whenever and wherever she found it – onto paper. Marina spent every summer of her childhood in the country, with her parents, cycling around lakes and through fields, always accompanied by her paintbox.

For marina, the natural beauty of northern Russia became a treasure trove of artistic inspiration. From 1982 to 1987 she attended an art school for young students. In 1989, she began her formal studies in the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, where the most famous Russian artists and architects had been receiving their training for the past 250 years. The Academy traditionally places equal value on architecture, graphics, and watercolour. Marina graduated in 1996 and chose art as her profession.

Since graduation from the Academy, Marina has been living out her dream of combining, through travel, the discovery of new places and people with her search for artistic inspiration. She enjoys the beautiful way unpredictable events occur and merge with her chosen lifestyle. For the past few years, Marina has been fascinated by Italy and its culture. She currently spends her summers there, painting. Italy, she says, has brought more sun and light to her work, including the book illustrations she creates during the winters, at home in St. Petersburg.

Marina includes as her sources of inspiration the French impressionists, Les Nabis, Pablo Picasso, J.M.W. Turner, and Russia’s “Silver Age.” At present, she considers the Italian Renaissance to be her “deepest ocean of inspiration.”

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