Linus Galleries, Fine Art Gallery
2014 Artist Interview Series
Raisa Nosova
oil paint and colored paper on canvas
38″x66″
Linus Galleries, a Los Angeles contemporary art gallery, presents The Artist Interview Series. Our Linus artists are from all over the world and come from a variety of different practices and backgrounds. Read on to gain insight into the creative process and personality of our featured artist. This week we chatted with Raisa Nosova, a talented artist who shares her thoughts on art below, along with some of her incredible oil paintings. Raisa’s artwork was recently featured in our Vulnerability vs. Strength online art show.
1) Please tell us your name, artistic practice of choice, and location in the world.
My name is Raisa Nosova.
I have a strong curiosity in cultures and a clear perception of the world, which has driven me to encounter the world through traveling. I have been creating work directly inspired by my surroundings while in Europe, the Near East and Southeast Asia. Once I’m back at my studio I make reflective work. My studio is located in Hoboken, NJ across the Hudson river from Manhattan. Most of my creative energy goes to painting and drawing, on occasion to film and animation, and recently music.
3) What is the first answer that comes to mind when you think of your favorite color?
Yellow has been my favorite since my childhood and I still feel a strong tie to the color.
4) What subject matter appears most in your artwork? What do you love about that subject? What do you dislike?
In most of my figurative and abstract work, spaces have been the major reoccurring theme. I recreate interior and exterior spaces based on memories, on-site sketches or photographs, focusing on the diffusion of color and light throughout the environment. This work explores the idea of the tangibility of spaces that we, as social individuals, pass through daily in our lives.
My abstract body of work, created with a feel of architectural structures contains spaces made up by my subconscious, perhaps out of a need for a place that is truly mine.
I have understood a big aspect of myself through the work, by allowing myself to first create the work and later analyze its origin and meaning.
5) What is difficult for you about your chosen medium?
Oil paint is one the most traditional mediums; it is tough to break away from its classic application whether that is blending or piling brushstrokes. It has also become in a way my language and it is difficult to switch languages without a necessity. However, sometimes I strive for something fresh, and feel a pull back to my big rock.
7) Which artist living or dead
would you want to have a drink with?
It would be quite illuminating to get some of Rothko’s time for conversation. I sometimes see him partially in my life by experiencing his work and by trying to understand him from readings. It would be great to compare how this interpretation has been shaped in, in contrast to reality.
Drink choice is a spontaneous thing for me that would be decided on the spot, with the flow of the moment.
8) What musical artist/band are you currently listening to when you are creating?
I have gone through a full cycle from listening to Russian pop music a few years ago, to switching to what I consider quality music whether it is Chopin, Schubert, Manu Chao, Trentemoller, Stromae, Beirut, Okean Elzi, Bon Iver or Lykki Li, to recently returning to Russian pop rap. Considering my formal music education growing up in Russia, this widely criticized genre should not be my music choice yet I feel the most focused on my work and at inner peace with myself when listening to it.
9) How do you unwind?
Camping, exploring, taking chances, learning about anything, bonding with new people, getting outside of my comfort zone, and spending time with my family.
