Elvira
Reshetnikova

I'm one of those people who, as a child, needed nothing more than pencils, paint and paper. In parallel with studying at elementary school № 9 in Almetyevsk, I began to attend lessons in the fine arts studio, where we were taught to draw by a wonderful artist-teacher Matveyev Vladimir Pavlovich. He could captivate any child with his approach to teaching. I still remember that everyone went to him with great interest. For example, he had a "magic" mallet into which he himself had built a magnet in order to set a stationery button. Sometimes this tool was given to the student to prepare for work independently. With it, we learned how to sharpen pencils with ordinary scissors and went to plein airs for the first time.
Then from 6th to 10th grade I studied at Almetyevsk Children's Art School № 1 at Stupnikova Lada Viktorovna. That time I also remember with warmth. In addition to practical lessons we had an extra class in art history, where we were introduced to the world's masterpieces of painting. Unfortunately, only from pictures.
After graduating from high school in 2003, I moved to St. Petersburg and entered the St. Petersburg University of Trade Unions, majoring in International Art Business and Foreign Languages. Then I chose my future profession, based on my interests - art and English. But I had to change the place of study and continue studying at St. Petersburg University of Culture and Arts. In 2008, she graduated with a degree in art history, specializing in Art Expertise.
After graduation, I devoted some time to drawing, but at some point I got involved in photography for a long time, and painting became a secondary priority. Do I regret not developing as an artist? Probably a little. But I think that a true artist must mature to create, otherwise one can get lost and turn to the path of commercialism. Photography was a strong passion, but to express my emotions in oil on canvas was stronger. You could say my journey as an artist is just beginning. Ahead of me there are searches, experiments, exhibitions and new knowledge.
Between 2017 and 2020, she participated in collective exhibitions from the Eurasian Union of Artists (Moscow), and in 2017 she organized her first solo exhibition at the Molbert Gallery (St. Petersburg):
Personal exhibition "Crimean Etudes", St. Petersburg,
mollbert Gallery, 2017
Participant of collective exhibitions:

- Artistic and exhibition project "Youth of St. Petersburg"-12.
St. Petersburg, Union of Artists, 2017
- Art and exhibition project "Youth of St. Petersburg "Spring", St. Petersburg, Union of Artists, 2018
- International exhibition of contemporary art NEXT ART WEEK IN GREECE. Greece, Thessaloniki, February-March, 2019
- Russian Art Week, Moscow, April 2019 (3rd place in the "Image" category (shapes and borders)
- Artistic and exhibition project "Youth of St. Petersburg"-13.
St. Petersburg, Union of Artists, 2019
- Russian Art Week in Copenhagen, June 2019
- St. Petersburg Art Week. June, 2019 (1st place in the category "Architecture")
- Art Week in China. Beijing, August, 2019. (2nd place in the "Avant-garde" category)
- India Arts Week. New Delhi, October 2019

In 2021 I graduated from the Repin Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in St. Petersburg. Repin Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Department of the Theory and History of Art (correspondence course). This is another important stage in my life. The Academy gave not just knowledge of art, it was my dream, which came true thanks to many factors. I - before entering the Academy and after - are two different people.
Painting for me is a way of self-expression, a desire to convey the beauty of life, which is sometimes expressed in small things. I am inspired by the works of many masters of the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists and Social Realists, and sometimes it is enough just to go to your favorite museum and gallery and get inspired.