Banks, Culture, Financial Services, Forum, Latvia

“We are used to that watercolour being the art of a small format - from a miniature and up to about one square metre. Works of Alina Lesova destroy this stereotype at once. Her watercolours are large, saturated with colour, and some are of incredibly large sizes,” says the art critic Elena Mironova. 

The artist likes to work in the genre of landscape. She focuses on small phenomena of nature and its details. These can be: sprays of rain or a sun ray on snow, fallen leaves and cranberry under snow, distant prospects or a natural microcosm, inconspicuous for an inattentive viewer, which is literally under our feet - all these cannot be taken and carried away from the reality of nature, but can be captured in fine arts. Alina Lesova paints also still life on a wide range of topics: from humble household items of village houses at dusk to luxurious formal portraits of flowers in palatial residences. 

“This exhibition is already our second joint project and we hope that it will also be interesting to the public, as well as the exhibition of photos “Art Deco Style in the Architecture of Riga”. Very often people, who are in search of new apartments, come to us in spring. This year was no exception, changes begin from the place we live. Now there is a high demand on the real estate market for apartments and villas crafted in a modern manner. And we have such proposals in our portfolio. With these bright paintings by artist Alina Lesova from St. Petersburg we would like to congratulate all our existing and future clients with the beginning of spring,” said Maria Suharenko, head of Rietumu Bank unit Apella. 

“Alina Lesova keeps in her art the same universalism that so delights us in the work of artists of the Renaissance. She believes that a professional artist should be able to do everything: paint with any colours, create a miniature and paint walls, collect stained-glass windows and be a sculptor. Oil or watercolour, pastels or tempera have the same value for her. But she definitely loves watercolour, she knows how to paint with it in thick or transparent layers, and even as oil,” commented Elena Mironova about the artist. 

Alina Lesova also teaches students and trains novice painters in her own studio. She travels a lot and works all the time, even on vacation. She is a happy person, for whom work, creativity and art are synonyms. Works of the artist are exhibited at iconic exhibition venues in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Europe and America, and can be found in art museums and private collections in Russia, the United States, France, Germany, Mexico, Italy and Poland. 

The exhibition is organised with the support of the Rietumu Bank unit - Apella. 

Alina Lesova is a regular participant of exhibitions of the Union of Artists of Russia, international Biennale of the Union of Watercolour Artists, the All-Russian Exhibition of Watercolours. She is a winner of the prestigious Russian and international competitions - the international contest "Master of Watercolour" in 2015, the international Yamal open-air in 2014. Throughout 18 years, the artist has been participating in creative ethnographic expeditions to the North of Russia.