In a two-bedroom apartment off Como Lake Avenue in Coquitlam, Svetlana Pugachova paints portraits and abstracts that have the depth, beauty and detail of European classical paintings.
Each night, when her boys, Maxim, seven, and Vlad, six, and husband, Ruslan, are in bed, Pugachova gets out her easel, her canvas and her oil paints, turns on some easy-listening music and gets to work.
Her detailed portraits are something you’d expect to see in a gallery in Holland, where some of her paintings hang.
Of late, she has been exploring abstract painting, layering swaths of colour on a canvas, in what she says is an emotional expression of what she sees in nature.
“I love Canada. I love the nature. I’ve wanted to come to Canada since I was 15,” Pugachova says.
In 2007, when she and her husband decided to immigrate for a better life and a more promising future, her dream came true.
The couple set down roots in Coquitlam, and now that the boys are in school, Pugachova is ready to get back to work as an artist.
But it hasn’t been that easy.
First, Pugachova is still learning English and, second, she doesn’t have any connections to the Canadian art world like she did in the Ukraine, where she spent 20 years developing her painting career.
In Europe, she exhibited in popular galleries, illustrated books, had articles written about her work and could teach art history.
Here, she is starting from scratch.
Still, Pugachova’s credentials are impressive.
She graduated from the Dnipropetrovsk School of Art in 1995 and from the Faculty of Art and History of Culture of the Dnipropetrovsk State University in 2000.
Her works are in private collections in Holland, Italy, Australia, Turkey and Syria.
But here in Canada, Pugachova says she has work to do to find out what Canadians like.
“I am working on getting my name known,” she said, noting that Canadians seem to prefer abstract paintings, with a lot of colour and emotion. “Canadians want to look and have an impression right away: A splash of colour, maybe more colourful.”
Much of her training is in portraiture, having learned classical techniques from a restoration painter.
The tradition is not well-established here although Pugachova would like to change that.
She works from a quality photo that she takes, visiting the subject for the final details, especially the eyes, and believes portraits are a way to reflect the uniqueness of each individual.
Plus they can last 300 years and be passed on through the generations.
“These are family treasures,” says Pugachova, who has done portraits of her boys, as well as herself and her husband, including one fun portrait that looks like a Gainsborough of The Blue Boy fame, in which she has carefully rendered the youngsters in 18th-century clothing.
Today, Pugachova is taking a pragmatic look at her craft. She is on Facebook and Instagram and is hoping to meet artists already working in the Tri-Cities.
So if you do see her at Como Lake or Mundy Park with her two boys, a camera in hand, and her husband along for the walk, be sure to stop and say hello.
• Visit http://www.art-pugachova.com/ or check out Facebook or email [email protected].
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@dstrandbergTC
